Abditosaurus kuehnei Abditosaurus
"forgotten lizard"
You 1.8 m (5.9 ft) tall
Abditosaurus 18 m (57 ft) long
10 people holding hands
- Length
- 18 m (57 ft)
- Period
- Late Cretaceous (70.5 Mya)
- Place
- South America · Africa · Europe · France
- Food
- Herbivore
- Clade
- Saltasauridae
Abditosaurus (meaning “forgotten lizard”) is an extinct genus of titanosaurian sauropod dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) Conques Formation (Tremp Group) of Catalonia, Spain. The genus contains a single species, Abditosaurus kuehnei, known from a partial specimen representing the most complete titanosaur skeleton found in Europe. Phylogenetic analyses recover it within a clade of South American and African saltasaurines, distinct from other insular dwarf sauropods from the European archipelago. Abditosaurus inhabited the Ibero-Armorican Island, a prehistoric island made up of what is now Spain, Portugal, and southern France, and would have been the largest titanosaur species in its environment.
What we know
- Named by Vila et al., 2022.
- Body length estimated at about 17.5 m.
- Fossils found in South America and Africa.