Saltasaurus
Saltasaurus
- Pronunciation:
- salt-a-sore-us
- Name meaning:
- 'Salta lizard'
- Type of dinosaur:
- sauropod
- Length:
- 12.0m
- Diet:
- herbivorous
- When it lived:
- Late Cretaceous, 70-66 million years ago
- Found in:
- Argentina
Fossils have been found showing that Saltasaurus had small bony nodules embedded in its skin, finally confirming that one a least one group of sauropods, called titanosaurs, had armour plates.
Saltasaurus is one of the last sauropods, living just before the group's extinction.
Taxonomic details
- Taxonomy:
- Dinosauria, Saurischia, Sauropodomorpha, Sauropoda, Eusauropoda, Neosauropoda, Macronaria, Camarasauromorpha, Titanosauriformes, Titanosauria, Lithostrotia, Saltasauridae
- Named by:
- Bonaparte and Powell (1980)
- Type species:
- loricatus
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