Huanghetitan

Huanghetitan
Temporal range: Early Cretaceous
Reconstructed skeletons of Huanghetitan and Daxiatitan.
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Order: Saurischia
Suborder: Sauropodomorpha
Clade: Camarasauromorpha
Clade: Titanosauriformes
Lu et al., 2007
Genus: Huanghetitan
You et al., 2006
Type species
Huanghetitan liujiaxiaensis
You et al., 2006
Species
  • H. liujiaxiaensis You et al., 2006
  • ?H. ruyangensis Lu et al., 2007

Huanghetitan (meaning "Yellow River titan"), is a genus of sauropod dinosaur from the early Cretaceous Period. It was a basal titanosauriform which lived in what is now Gansu, China.

The type species, Huanghetitan liujiaxiaensis, was described by You et al. in 2006. It is known from fragmentary materials including two caudal vertebrae, an almost complete sacrum, rib fragments, and the left shoulder girdle, and was discovered in the eastern part of the Lanzhou Basin (Hekou group) in the Gansu Province in 2004.[1]

A second species, "H." ruyangensis, was described in 2007 from the Mangchuan Formation of Ruyang County, China (Henan Province). A recent cladistic analysis has found that this species is not related to H. liujiaxiaensis and requires a new genus name.[2] It is known from a partial vertebral column and several ribs, the size of which (the largest approaches 3 m (10 ft)) indicate it had among the deepest body cavities of any known dinosaur.[3] This second species, along with its local relatives Daxiatitan and Ruyangosaurus, is one of the biggest dinosaurs ever found in Asia, and possibly one of the largest in the world.

In 2007, Lu et al. created a new family for Huanghetitan, the Huangetitanidae, but this family found to be polyphyletic by Mannion et al.[3][2]

References

  1. You, H., Li, D., Zhou, L., and Ji, Q., (2006). "Huanghetitan liujiaxiaensis. a New Sauropod Dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous Hekou Group of Lanzhou Basin, Gansu Province, China." Geological Review, 52 (5): 668-674.
  2. 1 2 P. D. Mannion, P. Upchurch, R. N. Barnes and O. Mateus. (2013). "Osteology of the Late Jurassic Portuguese sauropod dinosaur Lusotitan atalaiensis (Macronaria) and the evolutionary history of basal titanosauriforms." Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 168: 98-206.
  3. 1 2 Lu J., Xu, L., Zhang, X., Hu, W., Wu, Y., Jia, S., and Ji, Q. (2007). "A new gigantic sauropod dinosaur with the deepest known body cavity from the Cretaceous of Asia." Acta Geologica Sinica, 81: 167-176.

External links

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