Bravasaurus
Extinct genus of dinosaurs
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bravasaurus (meaning Laguna Brava lizard) is a genus of titanosaurian sauropod dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous Ciénaga del Río Huaco Formation of La Rioja, Argentina. It contains one species, Bravasaurus arreirosorum.[1]
| Bravasaurus Temporal range: Late Cretaceous, | |
|---|---|
| |
| Speculative restoration of Bravasaurus | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Clade: | Dinosauria |
| Clade: | Saurischia |
| Clade: | †Sauropodomorpha |
| Clade: | †Sauropoda |
| Clade: | †Macronaria |
| Clade: | †Titanosauria |
| Clade: | †Lithostrotia |
| Clade: | †Aeolosaurini |
| Genus: | †Bravasaurus Hechenleitner et al., 2020 |
| Type species | |
| †Bravasaurus arreirosorum Hechenleitner et al., 2020 | |
Etymology
Description
Bravasaurus was roughly 7 metres (23 ft) long and weighed nearly 2.9 metric tons (3.2 short tons).[1] It is known from the holotype CRILAR-Pv 612, which consists of the right quadrate and quadratojugal, four cervical, five dorsal, and three caudal vertebrae, few dorsal ribs, three haemal arches, the left humerus, a fragmentary ulna, the metacarpal IV, a partial left ilium with sacral ribs, the right pubis, a partial ischium, the left femur, and both fibulae, and the paratype CRILAR-Pv 613, which consists of an isolated tooth, the right ilium, the right femur, and dorsal ribs.[1]
Classification
The describers' phylogenetic analysis places Bravasaurus as a derived member of the Lithostrotia, in the clade Aeolosaurini, which they recover as a subclade of Rinconsauria, different from other cladograms. Their cladogram is shown below.
Paleoenvironment
The holotype locality, the Quebrada de Santo Domingo site, preserves one of the largest concentrations of titanosaur eggs in the world. The describing authors suggest some connection with either Bravasaurus or its contemporary Punatitan, which was described in the same paper.