Cedarosaurus
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Cedarosaurus Temporal range: Early Cretaceous, 126 Ma |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Clade: | Dinosauria |
| Order: | Saurischia |
| Suborder: | †Sauropodomorpha |
| Clade: | †Neosauropoda |
| Clade: | †Macronaria |
| Family: | †Brachiosauridae |
| Genus: |
†Cedarosaurus Tidwell et al., 1999 |
| Species: | †C. weiskopfae |
| Binomial name | |
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Cedarosaurus weiskopfae Tidwell et al., 1999 |
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Cedarosaurus (meaning "Cedar lizard" - named after the Cedar Mountain Formation, in which it was discovered) was a nasal-crested macronarian dinosaur genus from the Early Cretaceous Period (Barremian). It was a sauropod which lived in what is now Utah. It was first described by Tidwell, Carpenter and Brooks in 1999.
It shows similarities to the brachiosaurid Eucamerotus from the Wessex Formation of southern England, as well as to Brachiosaurus from the Morrison Formation.
Cedarosaurus had a more gracile ulna and radius than its relative Venenosaurus. The ratio of the radius' least circumference to its length is .31 in Cedarosaurus. Metatarsal II is more gracile in Cedarosaurus.
Its middle tail vertebrae's neural spines angled anteriorly when the vertebrae are aligned. These vertebrae resemble those of Gondwanatitan, Venenosaurus, and Aeolosaurus.
The related Venenosaurus had unusual lateral fossae, which looked like deep depressions in the outside walls of the vertebral centra. Some fossae are divided into two chambers by a ridge inside the depression. In most sauropods the fossae would form pneumatic openings leading to the interior of the centrum, rather than just being a depression. Less well-developed, but similar fossae are known from Cedarosaurus itself.
In 2001 Frank Sanders, Kim Manley, and Kenneth Carpenter published a study on 115 gastroliths discovered in association with a Cedarosaurus specimen. The stones were identified as gastroliths on the basis of their tight spatial distribution, partial matrix support, and an edge-on orientation indicative of their being deposited while the carcass still had soft tissue. Their high surface reflectance values are consistent with other known dinosaur gastroliths. Nearly all of the Cedarosaurus gastroliths were found within a .06 m volume of space in the gut region of the skeleton.
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