Gondwanatitan faustoi
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Gondwanatitan Temporal range: Late Cretaceous,70 Ma |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Clade: | Dinosauria |
| Order: | Saurischia |
| Suborder: | †Sauropodomorpha |
| Clade: | †Neosauropoda |
| Clade: | †Macronaria |
| Clade: | †Titanosauria |
| Family: | †Aeolosauridae |
| Genus: |
†Gondwanatitan Kellner & de Azevedo, 1999 |
| Species: | †G. faustoi |
| Binomial name | |
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Gondwanatitan faustoi Kellner & de Azevedo, 1999 |
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Gondwanatitan (meaning "giant from Gondwana") was a titanosaurian sauropod dinosaur. Gondwanatitan was found in Brazil, at the time part of the southern supercontinent Gondwana, in the late Cretaceous Period (70 mya). Like some other sauropods, Gondwanatitan was tall and ate tough shoots and leaves off of the tops of trees. G. faustoi's closest relative was Aeolosaurus.
The type species is Gondwanatitan faustoi, formally described by Kellner and de Azevedo in 1999.
Gondwanatitan means "Gondwana Titan", and is named after Gondwana, the supercontinent that the genus' South American range was once part of, and the Titans of classical Greek mythology. The type and only named species, G. faustoi, is a patronym honoring Dr. Fausto L. de Souza Cunha, a former curator at the Museu Nacional/UFRJ who led the excavation of the type specimen.
Gondwanatitan was a fairly small sauropod, only 7 meters long. It had relatively gracile limb bones. The middle caudal vertebrae are distinctively "heart-shaped", which allows isolated caudal vertebrae to be easily distinguished from those of Aeolosaurus.
The vertebrae from the middle part of its tail had elongated centra.Gondwanatitan had vertebral lateral fossae that resembled shallow depressions. Fossae that similarly resemble shallow depressions are known from Saltasaurus, Alamosaurus, Malawisaurus, and Aeolosaurus. Its middle tail vertebrae's neural spines are angled anteriorly when the vertebrae are aligned. These vertebrae resemble those of Cedarosaurus, Venenosaurus, and Aeolosaurus.
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