Algoasaurus

Algoasaurus
Temporal range: Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous
Femur, vertebra and scapula
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Sauropsida
Superorder: Dinosauria
Order: Saurischia
Suborder: Sauropodomorpha
Infraorder: Sauropoda
Genus: Algoasaurus
Broom, 1904
Binomial name
Algoasaurus bauri
Broom, 1904

Algoasaurus (/ælˌɡ.əˈsɔːrəs/; "Algoa Bay reptile") is a genus of sauropod dinosaur from the Tithonian-early Valanginian-age Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous Upper Kirkwood Formation of Cape Province, South Africa. It was a neosauropod; although it has often been assigned to the Titanosauridae,[1][2] there is no evidence for this, and recent reviews have considered it to be an indeterminate sauropod.[3][4]

The type species, A. bauri, was named by Robert Broom in 1904 from a back vertebra, femur and an ungual phalanx. The fossils were recovered in 1903 from a quarry by workmen who did not recognize them as dinosaur specimens, so many of the bones were made into bricks and thus destroyed.[5] The animal may have been around 9 m (30 ft) long when it died.[6]

References

  1. Romer, Alfred Sherwood (1997). Osteology of the reptiles (Reprint with new preface and taxonomic table. ed.). Malabar, Fla.: Krieger Pub. Co. pp. 1–772. ISBN 0-89464-985-X.
  2. Steel, R. (1970). Saurischia. Handbuch der Paläoherpetologie/Encyclopedia of Paleoherpetology. Part 14. Gustav Fischer Verlag:Stuttgart p. 1-87.
  3. David B. Weishampel; Peter Dodson; Halszka Osmólska, eds. (1992). The Dinosauria (1st. paperback printing. ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 345–401. ISBN 0-520-06727-4.
  4. David B. Weishampel, ed. (2004). The Dinosauria (2nd. ed.). Berkeley [u.a.]: Univ. of California Press. pp. 259–322. ISBN 0-520-24209-2.
  5. Broom, R. (1904). On the occurrence of an opisthocoelian dinosaur (Algoasaurus Bauri) in the Cretaceous beds of South Africa. Geological Magazine, decade 5, 1(483):445-447.
  6. Don Lessem; Donald F. Glut (1993). The Dinosaur Society's dinosaur encyclopedia. Tracy Ford (illus.) ... [et al.] ; scientific advisors, Peter Dodson (1st. ed.). New York: Random House. p. 16. ISBN 0-679-41770-2.
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