New Species of Sauropod Dinosaur Unearthed in Argentina | Sci.News
A new genus and species of rebbachisaurid sauropod dinosaur has been described from fossils discovered at a paleontological locality in the Argentine province of Neuquén.
Life reconstruction of Cienciargentina sanchezi. Image credit: Connor Ashbridge / CC BY 4.0.
The newly-discovered dinosaur roamed Earth during the Late Cretaceous epoch, some 94 million years ago.
Named Cienciargentina sanchezi, the species is the earliest member of the diplodocoid dinosaur family Rebbachisauridae known to date.
Rebbachisaurids diversified primarily on the supercontinent Gondwana between the Early and Late Cretaceous.
These dinosaurs are known from fragmentary fossil remains from South America, Africa, North America, Europe and possibly Central Asia.
They are distinguished from other sauropods by their distinctive teeth. Some species had tooth batteries, similar to those of hadrosaur and ceratopsian dinosaurs.
“The first South American rebbachisaurid sauropods were recognized upon the basis of materials from the surroundings of Villa El Chocón (Neuquén Province, Argentina), from the Candeleros and Huincul formations,” said corresponding author Leonardo Salgado from the Universidad Nacional de Río Negro-Conicet and his colleague María Edith Simón.
“The rebbachisaurid materials from the Huincul Formation are especially relevant because, together with those of the Bajo Barreal Formation, correspond to the last indubitable diplodocoids before, presumably, they became completely extinct.”
The fossilized material from Cienciargentina sanchezi was found in the surroundings of Villa El Chocón in the base of the Huincul Formation.
“This new species is added to the list of rebbachisaurid sauropods documented in the Huincul Formation (upper Cenomanian-Turonian), which are thought to be the latest diplodocoids at global level,” the paleontologists said.
“In fact: from the Turonian onwards, sauropod communities are composed exclusively of macronarians, mostly titanosaurs.”
“In Patagonia, particularly in the Huincul Formation, the hypothetical faunal turnover that occurred in the middle of the Cretaceous, which involved not only sauropods but other groups of dinosaurs, is observed, perhaps like nowhere else in South America.”
A paper describing the discovery was published this month in the journal Cretaceous Research.
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María Edith Simón & Leonardo Salgado. New rebbachisaurid (Dinosauria, Sauropoda) from the Huincul Formation (upper Cenomanian-Turonian) of Villa El Chocón (Neuquén Province, Argentina). Cretaceous Research, publisherd online April 9, 2025; doi: 10.1016/j.cretres.2025.106137
