Padillasaurus
- Length
- 18 m (59 ft)
- Period
- Early Cretaceous (145–100 Mya)
- Place
- South America · Gondwana
- Food
- Herbivore
- Clade
- Dinosauria The clade containing all dinosaurs, terrestrial archosaurs with upright limbs.
Padillasaurus is an extinct genus of titanosauriform sauropod known from the Early Cretaceous (Barremian stage) Paja Formation in Colombia. It contains a single species, Padillasaurus leivaensis, known only from a single partial axial skeleton. Initially described as a brachiosaurid, it was considered to be the first South American brachiosaurid ever discovered and named. Before its discovery, the only known brachiosaurid material on the continent was very fragmentary and from the Jurassic period. However, a more recent study finds it to be a basal somphospondylan.
What we know
- Named by Carballido et al., 2015.
- Body length estimated at about 18 m.
- Fossils found in South America and Gondwana.
What we guess
The reconstruction notes for Padillasaurus — soft tissue, color, behavior — haven't been written up yet. Only the recorded basics above are filled in so far.