Abstract
Sauropoda is one of the most diverse and geographically widespread clades of herbivorous dinosaurs, and until now, their remains have now been recovered from all continental landmasses except Antarctica. We report the first record of a sauropod dinosaur from Antarctica, represented by an incomplete caudal vertebra from the Late Cretaceous of James Ross Island. The size and morphology of the specimen allows its identification as a lithostrotian titanosaur. Our finding indicates that advanced titanosaurs achieved a global distribution at least by the Late Cretaceous.
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Acknowledgments
Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Técnica (PICT-2007-0365 to M.R. and C.P.T) and Instituto Antártico Argentino provided field trip funding. J. González prepared the illustrations on Fig. 2. R. Sissons, A. Green, and P.D. Mannion provided useful comments on this manuscript. The comments and suggestions of three anonymous reviewers greatly enhanced the quality of this work.
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Communicated by: Robert Reisz
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Cerda, I.A., Paulina Carabajal, A., Salgado, L. et al. The first record of a sauropod dinosaur from Antarctica. Naturwissenschaften 99, 83–87 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-011-0869-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-011-0869-x