🦖 Dinosaurs🦕 SauropodomorphCretaceousWell known
Amargasaurus
Amargasaurus cazaui
With its bizarre neck spines, Amargasaurus shows how varied sauropods were, far beyond the image of the simple long-neck.
Image: Jan Helebrant · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
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Characteristics
- Scientific name
- Amargasaurus cazaui
- Period
- Early Cretaceous (Barremian–Aptian)
- Lived
- 130–120 Ma (130 million years ago)
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Habitat
- Plains, Forest
- Length (estimate)
- 10 m
- Mass (estimate)
- 2,600 kg
- Discovered/described
- 1984 · expedition led by José Bonaparte
Description
Amargasaurus was a relatively small sauropod with two parallel rows of long spines along its neck and back, taller than in any other sauropod. Whether the spines supported a skin sail, horn sheaths or something else is unknown; they may have served for display or defence. The only skeleton is nearly complete.
Habitat
River landscapes in the north-west of present-day Patagonia.
Fossil sites
La Amarga, Neuquén
La Amarga Formation
Cultural profile: Argentina →
Contemporaries in the database
Sources: Amargasaurus