Saltasaurus
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Saltasaurus Temporal range: Late Cretaceous |
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| Conservation status | |
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Fossil
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Sauropsida |
| Order: | Saurischia |
| Suborder: | Sauropodomorpha |
| Infraorder: | Sauropoda |
| (unranked): | Titanosauria |
| Family: | Saltasauridae |
| Genus: | Saltasaurus |
| Species: | S. loricatus |
| Binomial name | |
| Saltasaurus loricatus Bonaparte & Powell, 1980 |
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Saltasaurus was a large plant-eating dinosaur with an elongated neck and bony armored plates on its body. It was a titanosaurid sauropod that lived during the late Cretaceous Period, about 83 to 79 million years ago. Fossils have been found in Argentina.
Description [change]
Saltasaurus was named by paleontologists J. Bonaparte and J. Powell in 1980. Salta is the name of the Northwestern Argentinian Province where fossils were found. They include: a few oval and circular armored plates, hundreds of bumps which covered its back (roughly 1/4 inch = 6-7 mm in diameter), and several incomplete skeletons, including some vertebrae, limb bones, and jaws.
