Until now, these gigantic quadrupeds, the titanosaurs, with an age greater than 120 million years, were not known. But this newfound is 140 million years old . Titanosaurs, then, originated in the early Cretaceous period.
This fossil specimen of a tyrannosaurus excavated in the Patagonia of Argentina, Ninjatitan zapatai , was part of a creature 20 meters long .
Impact for knowledge about titanosaurs
The Ninjatitan discovery took place in the Bajada Colorada Formation , southeast of Neuquén. The first finding was a very complete scapula from this animal. In the following campaign, three vertebrae and some bones of its hind legs appeared; a part of the femur and what would be its fibula.
Ninjatitan represents an impact on the knowledge about titanosaurs. From the discovery of Nijatitan zapatai , the idea that titanosaurs had a Gondwanic origin is reinforced, in the southern supercontinent made up of what is currently South America, Africa, India, Australia and Antarctica.
According to Pablo Gallina , a researcher at the Azara Foundation at the Maimonides University and lead author of the study that describes the finding, in the journal Ameghiniana:
This discovery is also very important for the knowledge of the evolutionary history of sauropods, because the fossil records of the early Cretaceous, about 140 million years ago, are really very scarce worldwide.