Ninjatitan zapatai lived about 140 million years ago (early Cretaceous) in present-day Patagonia, Argentina.
Ninjatitan zapatai. Image credit: Jorge González.
Ninjatitan zapatai belongs to Titanosauria, a diverse group of sauropod (long-necked herbivorous) dinosaurs.
This group includes species ranging from the largest known vertebrates to ‘dwarfs’ that are no larger than elephants.
“Throughout evolutionary history, sauropods have had different moments, different pulses of gigantism, not just related to the group of titanosaurs,” said Dr. Pablo Ariel Gallina, a paleontologist at the Fundación Azara at Maimonides University and CONICET, said.
‘There were large animals at the end of the Jurassic period, such as Apatosaurus and Brachiosaurus. And already in the line of titanosaurs, the pulse with the largest giants occurs by the middle of the Cretaceous, with species such as Patagotitan, Argentinosaurus or Notocolossus. ”
Ninjatitan zapatai was about 20 m long and had a long neck and tail.
‘The most important importance of Ninjatitan zapataiapart from being a new species of titanosaurus, it is the earliest record worldwide for this group, ‘said dr. Gallina said.
“This discovery is also very important for the knowledge of the evolutionary history of sauropods, because the fossil records of the early Cretaceous period about 140 million years ago are really very rare all over the world.”
The 140 million year old remains of Ninjatitan zapatai was discovered in the Bajada Colorada Formation in Neuquén Province, Patagonia Region, Argentina.
“The presence of a basal titanosauric sauropod in the lower Cretaceous of Patagonia supports the hypothesis that the group is located in the southern hemisphere and reinforces the idea of a Gondwana origin for Titanosauria,” the researchers said.
The discovery of Ninjatitan zapatai is described in a paper in the journal Ameghiniana.
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PA Gallina et al. 2021 The earliest known titanosaurus sauropod dinosourus Ameghiniana 58 (1): 35-51; doi: 10.5710 / AMGH.20.08.2020.3376