Pilmatueia

Pilmatueia is a diplodocoid sauropod belonging to the family Dicraeosauridae that lived in Argentina during the Early Cretaceous.

Pilmatueia
Temporal range: Early Cretaceous, Valanginian
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Dinosauria
Clade: Saurischia
Suborder: †Sauropodomorpha
Clade: †Sauropoda
Clade: †Eusauropoda
Clade: †Neosauropoda
Family: †Dicraeosauridae
Genus: †Pilmatueia
Coria et al., 2018
Type species
†Pilmatueia faundezi
Coria et al., 2018

Discovery

The type species, Pilmatueia faundezi, was described in 2018 by Rodolfo Coria and colleagues. The genus name is derived from the Pilmatué locality, where the material was collected, and the species epithet faundezi was chosen in recognition of Ramón Faúndez, manager of the Museo Municipal de Las Lajas, who supported the excavation project. Pilmatueia is the first recognized Valangininan dicraeosaurid and is the earliest recorded Cretaceous dicraeosaurid. It was part of a South American Upper Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous dicraeosaurid radiation.[1]

The fossils were recovered as early as 2009 in a layer of the Mulichinco Formation (Valanginian, Lower Cretaceous, Neuquén Basin, Argentina) and is based on isolated skeletal remains collected from a single stratigraphic level, relatively close to each other, with unquestionable dicraeosaurid features in the axial elements.

Description

Pilmatueia faundezi is diagnosed by a unique combination of several features that include cervico-dorsal vertebrae with dorsoventrally oriented ridges on the anterior surfaces of the anterior centrodiapophyseal laminae, and posterior dorsal vertebrae with deep fossae at the bases of the bifid neural spines separated by a thick, low, sagittal lamina. Pilmatueia is recovered as the sister taxon of the late Early Cretaceous Amargasaurus cazaui.[1]

References
  1. Rodolfo A. Coria; Guillermo J. Windholz; Francisco Ortega; Philip J. Currie (2018). "A new dicraeosaurid sauropod from the Lower Cretaceous (Mulichinco Formation, Valanginian, Neuquén Basin) of Argentina". Cretaceous Research. in press. doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2018.08.019.
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