Austroposeidon was a large sauropod from Late Cretaceous Brazil.
Description[]
Austroposeidon was a large sauropod in fact, the largest dinosaur discovered in Brazil. It is a titanosaur, and reached up to 25 meters long (82 feet).
Discovery and naming[]
MCT 1628-R is currently the only known specimen found of the genus. It was found in the Presidente Prudente Formation in 1953 by paleontologist Llewellyn Ivor Price. The genus name combines austro ("southern", as in South America, from Latin Auster, the southern wind) and poseidon, a reference to the Greek god of earthquakes of the same name. The specific name is the Latin word magnificus ("great, elevated, noble"), referring to the large size of the specimen.
Classification[]
Cervical rib Thirteenth neck vertebra
A phylogenetic analysis in 2016 recovered Austroposeidon as the sister taxon of the Lognkosauria. An updated version was published by Silva et al. (2019), where the only significant changes from the original, based on a redescription of Uberabatitan, was the movement of Uberabatitan and Brasilotitan from Saltasaurinae to Aeolosaurini.
In the media[]
- Austroposeidon appeared on Prehistoric Planet.