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PALAEONTOLOGY

Titanosaur boom

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 6, pages 251–252 (2022)Cite this article

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An exceptionally large species of sauropod titanosaur from the Late Cretaceous of northern Spain provides insight into changing diversity dynamics of titanosaurs over time, and sheds light on faunal turnover and migration.

With a global distribution, titanosaurs were the most successful sauropod dinosaurs of the Cretaceous (145–66 million years ago (Ma))1,2. The past 20 years have seen something of a boom in titanosaurian discovery, with more than 60 new taxa described since 2000 and many taxa reported in the twentieth century reviewed and clarified. Writing in Nature Ecology & Evolution, Vila et al. present Abditosaurus kuehnei, based on an associated and semi-articulated partial skeleton found at the site of Orcau-1 in Catalonia, Spain3. The taxon joins five others from the region, cementing it as a site of high levels of Late Cretaceous sauropod diversity.

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Fig. 1: Late Cretaceous (early Campanian–late Maastrichtian) titanosaurian diversity of Europe and Egypt.

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  1. Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, Germany

    Verónica Díez Díaz

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Correspondence to Verónica Díez Díaz.

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Díez Díaz, V. Titanosaur boom. Nat Ecol Evol 6, 251–252 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-022-01677-3

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