Sauropoda
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Mamenchisaurus sanjiangensis
''' Paleontologists have analyzed an exceptionally long sauropod trackway at the West Gold Hill Dinosaur Tracksite in Colorado, the United States. Their results show that the giant dinosaur which made it may have been limping... '''
17 Votes in Poll
A colossal titanosaur, Chucarosaurus diripienda, unearthed in Patagonia, measured 30 meters and weighed tens of tonnes. Its immense size even cracked a road during transport, highlighting its incredible bulk. This discovery offers new insights into how these giants evolved, moved, and survived, challenging previous notions of their agility and strength.
Named Chucarosaurus diripienda, this extraordinary dinosaur measured roughly 30 metres long and weighed tens of tonnes, making it one of the largest land animals ever discovered. Beyond its sheer size, the find is reshaping scientists’ understanding of how these long-necked giants evolved, moved, and survived in prehistoric ecosystems, offering fresh insights into their anatomy, growth patterns, and ancient environmental adaptations, while also revealing previously unknown skeletal features, muscle structures, and biomechanical traits that deepen our understanding of dinosaur physiology and evolutionary history.
'''' A less-famous branch of sauropods — The Titanosauria — rewrote what scientists thought about how giant dinosaurs lived. Rather than fading away early, titanosaurs thrived for tens of millions of years and occupied ecosystems on all seven continents until The Asteroid impact 66 million years ago. ''''
Titanosaurs first appear in the fossil record by the Early Cretaceous, about 126 million years ago. Over the next 75–80 million years, continental drift helped distribute them worldwide.
Nearly 100 species are now recognized — more than 30% of known sauropod diversity — and they ranged from elephant-sized forms to giants exceeding 60 tons ( 54 metric tonnes ) such as Argentinosaurus, Patagotitan and Futalognkosaurus.
Titanosaurs were plant specialists with diverse feeding habits. Microscopic wear patterns on teeth from Argentina indicate consumption of gritty, low-growing vegetation, while coprolites (fossilized dung) from India show they could feed from ground-level plants up into tree branches — a broad feeding envelope.
Like other dinosaurs, titanosaurs continuously replaced their teeth; analyses suggest an extraordinary replacement rate of about every 20 days for individual teeth, among the fastest known for dinosaurs.
'''' Titanosaurs hatched from relatively small eggs — no larger than grapefruits. The richest nesting evidence comes from Auca Mahuevo in Argentina, where hundreds of nests and thousands of eggs ( about 75 million years old ) include exceptionally preserved embryos and even skin impressions.
The dense clustering of nests suggests repeated use of the same sites and a largely hands-off reproductive strategy: many eggs, little parental care.
Hatchlings were small by adult standards — roughly 1 ft (30 cm) tall, 3 ft (1 m) long and weighing only a few kilograms — and evidence from juvenile bones (for example, Rapetosaurus from Madagascar) shows they were presumed to be precocial, foraging and moving more independently at an early age....
For a long time paleontologists modeled titanosaur growth using slow, reptile-like rates that implied decades-long juvenescence. High-resolution studies of bone microstructure and vascular spaces tell a different story: titanosaurs grew rapidly, with growth rates comparable to large mammals such as whales.
Instead of taking a century to mature, many titanosaurs likely reached adult size within a few decades. Chemical analyses of fossil teeth and eggshells indicate titanosaurs maintained relatively high body temperatures — about 95–100.5 °F (35–38 °C) — warmer than modern crocodilians, roughly similar to many mammals, and slightly cooler than many birds.
Higher body temperatures and dense bone vascularization together helped sustain fast growth.... ''''
* https://ww2.jacksonms.gov/fulldisplay/HjmbXO/7OK137/sex__and-the__dinosaur.pdf
Method to identify female dinosaurs discovered at Queen's
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gqdyx9rXQmY
* https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(25)02000-0
“B-b-but Oxalaia is so cool! Spinosaurus!” “Tyrannosaurus is cool” blah blah all of those ARE cool (except Oxalaia), don’t get me wrong, but sauropods are even cooler
Largest land animals to have ever lived and potentially THE largest animal to breath on this planet??? And adults of the larger species had near zero predators??? That’s insane!
They’re so dopey too and so goofy and large and chunky and ahjxkdnajoshxnxksiwhnw
I love them so much
This is an image of all my dinosaur plushies and out of 18 of them, 6 are sauropods.
I have loved these creatures for millennia and they deserve more love jsksodhsbdofhbws
''' Paleontologists have unearthed a new assemblage of Triassic fossils at the Quebrada Santo Domingo site of the Northern Precordillera Basin in northwestern Argentina.
Their discoveries include a nearly complete skeleton of a previously unknown sauropodomorph dinosaur species as well as several cynodonts, rhynchosaurs, and aetosaurs... '''
''' { Time-Capsule } bones of Huayracursor illuminate the rise of later giants like Argentinosaurus Dated to about 230 million years... jaguensis is among the earliest known dinosaurs and promises new insight into the rise of the giant sauropods... '''
18 Votes in Poll
■ ] Fossil uncovered in southern Switzerland of prehistoric aquatic reptile
■ ] Mysterious bone disease ravaged Brazil’s giant dinosaurs
Researchers found sauropod bones with,conditions for the disease existed.
Primal cartoon zombie sauropod much ? (!)
■ ] New Crocodyliform ! Tiny & Smol !
■ ] New Australian Songbird. A Big One !
39 - 40 feet long | 11 - 12 meters ! -- Rex sized sauropod
''' Officially Named : Huashanosaurus qini
The new dinosaur species is estimated to have been around 12 m (39 feet) long. It lived in what is now China’s Guangxi autonomous region from the Early to Middle Jurassic, 200 to 162 million years ago.
'' Jurassic sauropods are well represented in China, especially in Yunnan, Sichuan, Chongqing and Xinjiang, with only a few localities known in Gansu, Ningxia, Anhui, Tibet and Guizhou... '' said lead author Dr. Jinyou Mo from the Natural History Museum of Guangxi and colleagues.
“In Guangxi, the Jurassic record of dinosaur fossils is poor, compared with the Cretaceous dinosaur fossil record.”
The Lake Erie Formation is a wide formation originating from the Albian-Cenomanian Appalachia (modern-day Great Lakes) in the Mid-Cretaceous.
It was mostly floodplains, with deltas, streams, and bogs making up most of the environment, and containing all sorts of vegetation, such as Cretaceous redwoods, regnellites, ground fibre, and ground fruit, and possibly early pteridosperms. The known fauna (to in-universe paleontologists) include:
Naviadupleovenator erieii
Sauraves michigensis
Pachystegocephale appalachiani
Erie Fossil Abelisaurid (Abelisauridae indet)
Erie Rib Specimen (Dinosauria indet)
Erie Coelecanth (Dipnoi indet)
Erie Halecomorphi (Halecomorphi indet)
Erie Sauropod (Sauropoda indet)
If you would like to know more about the speculative project, about the fauna, predator-prey dynamics, and differences between what is believed in-universe to what they're meant to be, just ask! Or, what the hell some of these species are, go ahead!
◊ | Oldest Turiasaurian sauropods from Africa
https://x.com/TomHoltzPaleo/status/1953501504976855201
https://www.app.pan.pl/article/item/app012142024.html
[ Teeth from the Middle Jurassic of Morocco reveal the oldest turiasaurian sauropods from Africa ]
''' Readily identifiable based on their large, “spatulate” teeth with diagnostic “heart”-shaped crowns, turiasaurians are non-neosauropodan eusauropods known from varied Jurassic and Cretaceous formations across Laurasia and Gondwana. Recently, three teeth with turiasaurian features were collected from the Middle Jurassic El Mers III Formation in the Middle Atlas Mountains of north-central Morocco.
Although these teeth are superficially similar to those of the Late Jurassic Turiasaurus riodevensis from Spain, the absence of rounded denticles presence of a prominently peaked apex and a mesially flared margin, differ from other known turiasaurians.
Turiasaurians have not previously been described from the El Mers III Formation, and the only named sauropod from the El Mers Group, which lacks preserved teeth, is The dubious taxon “ Cetiosaurus mogrebiensis ”...
Due to lack of overlapping material and its lack of clear diagnostic characters, we refrain from referring these teeth to the latter, and identify them as Turiasauria indeterminate instead.
These teeth represent the first definitive turiasaurian remains from Morocco, as well as the geologically oldest occurrence of Turiasauria from mainland Africa... '''
https://x.com/JamaleIjouiher/status/1954988282577818057
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/03115518.2025.2537025
''' New paper on an ornithopod hindlimb from Australia. While not Diluvicursor, Fostoria, or Muttaburrasaurus.
The other species don't have overlapping material for comparison. So, this could be something new -- Or post~cranial remains from a known taxa...
'' Wudingloong wui lived in what is now Yunnan, China, around 200 million years ago || Early Jurassic epoch ''
'' Wudingloong wui was a small- to medium-sized non-sauropodan member of Sauropodomorpha, one of the most successful dinosaurian groups with an almost global distribution, spanning from Antarctica to Greenland... ''
''' The discovery of Wudingloong wui provides further evidence that the southwestern China sauropodomorph assemblage is one of the most taxonomically diverse and morphologically disparate in the pre-Toarcian Early Jurassic worldwide, represented by various species from near the base of the Massopoda to non-sauropodan sauropodiforms. '''
The fossilized bones of Wudingloong wui were collected from Yubacun Formation theat Wande town in China’s Yunnan province.
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Astigmasaura genuflexa
'''' | -- { The newly-discovered dinosaur lived in what is now Argentina during the Late Cretaceous epoch, approximately 95 million years ago. Scientifically named Astigmasaura genuflexa, the species was about 18 - 19 meters ( 59 - 60 feet ) long and weighed more than 10+ tons. The ancient giant was a member of Rebbachisauridae, a large family of sauropod dinosaurs within the superfamily Diplodocoidea.
“Rebbachisaurids are medium to large-sized, non-selective and ground-level browser diplodocoid sauropods, and they are characterized by highly specialized skulls, widely pneumatized axial elements and gracile appendicular skeletons,” said
“Known from the Early Cretaceous to the early Late Cretaceous, the rebbachisaurid fossil record is particularly diversified in the ancient supercontinent Gondwana, with several specimens found in North Africa and South America.” --- } | ''''
The Fact we still discover large Sauropods is Amazing !
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'' While it's just a fragment now, the femur is thought to have been about 27 centimeters long during the silesaur's life. This is almost double the length of the femurs from silesaurs found in the same region ! '''
'''' A groundbreaking study published in Royal Society Open Science delves into a 225-million-year-old fossil discovered in Zambia, which could dramatically alter our understanding of early dinosaur evolution.
The ancient leg bone, believed to belong to a silesaur, an early reptile closer to dinosaurs, suggests that early dinosaur ancestors might have been significantly larger than previously thought. This finding casts new light on the size and ecological roles of early dinosaurs and their relatives, potentially reshaping the way we understand the Triassic period. As researchers uncover more fossil evidence, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the size of these early reptiles has been historically underestimated... ''''
[ A Fragmentary Fossil With Big Implications ]
The fossil in question, a femur discovered in the 1960s, was not initially recognized for its significance.
[ Tl;dr : Another Khankhuuluu case; these important invaluable fossils; sitting there collecting dust ! ]
'''' The bone, preserved in the archives of the Natural History Museum, had been overlooked for decades until Jack Lovegrove, a Ph.D. student, reexamined it. What makes this discovery so vital is its connection to the silesaurs, a group of early reptiles considered to be either the ancestors of dinosaurs or their closest relatives. These creatures lived during the Triassic period, and their fossilized remains have long been fragments that have perplexed paleontologists ! ''''
Which means this guys; could Not be an exception !
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It was about : 24 to 28 Meters. Willing to bet larger / largest ones reached 30 meters !
A new mamenchisaurid from the Upper Jurassic Suining Formation of the Sichuan Basin in China and its implication on sauropod gigantism