Muyelensaurus
"Muyelen lizard"
- Length
- 5 m (16.4 ft)
- Period
- Late Cretaceous (86–85 Mya)
- Place
- Argentina · Brazil · Colorado, USA
- Food
- Herbivore
- Clade
- Dinosauria The clade containing all dinosaurs, terrestrial archosaurs with upright limbs.
Muyelensaurus (meaning “Muyelen lizard”, after an indigenous name for the Colorado River in Argentina) is a genus of titanosaurian sauropod dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of Argentina. It was more slender than other titanosaurs. Fossils have been recovered in the Neuquén province of Patagonia and were originally assigned to the Portezuelo Formation but further research showed that these layers belong to the Plottier Formation. The type species is M. pecheni. The name Muyelensaurus first appeared in a 2007 paper by Argentine paleontologists Jorge Calvo of the Universidad Nacional del Comahue and Bernardo González Riga of the Laboratorio de Paleovertebrados, and Brazilian paleontologist Juan Porfiri of the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro.
What we know
- Named by Calvo et al. 2007.
- Fossils found in Argentina and Brazil.
What we guess
The reconstruction notes for Muyelensaurus — soft tissue, color, behavior — haven't been written up yet. Only the recorded basics above are filled in so far.