Unranked clade

Valid Extinct

Lohuecosauria

Mocho et al. 2024

Saltasauroidea is a superfamily of titanosaurs named by França and colleagues in 2016 based on their phylogenetic results, for a clade uniting Aeolosaurini and Saltasauridae, as well as the intermediate genera Baurutitan, Diamantinasaurus and Isisaurus. The group was not discussed in the text, but was supported by Carballido and colleagues in 2022 as a useful designation for subdividing titanosaurs. As there was no discussion about the intentions for the clade, Carballido gave it the definition of all taxa closer to Saltasaurus than Patagotitan, encompassing half of Eutitanosauria as the sister taxon to the inversely defined Colossosauria. Carballido et al. placed Nemegtosauridae and Saltasauridae within the group, though they had Aeolosaurini within Colossosauria. The informal cladogram of titanosaur relationships they proposed is shown below.

Temporal range

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

Paleogene

Neogene

252 201 145 66 0 Ma

PBDB occurrences

Group

Dinosaures

Herbivore Ground dwelling, gregarious Terrestrial

click to enlarge

The saltasaurine sauropod Neuquensaurus australis, from the Anacleto Formation (Upper Cretaceous), Patagonia, Argentina. Restoration of the skeleton mounted at the Museo de La Plata, Argentina. © Alejandro Otero · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia

PBDB ↗ Wikipedia ↗

Classification

Dinosauria Unranked clade

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Saurischia Unranked clade

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Sauropodomorpha Unranked clade

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Massopoda Unranked clade

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Sauropodiformes Unranked clade

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Sauropoda Unranked clade

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Gravisauria Unranked clade

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Eusauropoda Unranked clade

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Neosauropoda Unranked clade

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Macronaria Unranked clade

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Titanosauriformes Unranked clade

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Somphospondyli Unranked clade

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Titanosauria Unranked clade

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Lithostrotia Unranked clade

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Saltasauroidea Superfamily

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Lohuecosauria Unranked clade

Fossil sites 78 geolocated sites

Distribution

Top countries

🇺🇸 United States

🇦🇷 Argentina

🇧🇷 Brazil

🇪🇸 Spain

🇨🇳 China

🇪🇬 Egypt

🇫🇷 France

🇲🇽 Mexico

🇪🇨 Ecuador

🇲🇳 Mongolia

Geological formations

Ojo Alamo

Javelina

Anacleto

Allen

Bajo de la Carpa

São José do Rio Preto

Kirtland

North Horn

Quseir

Conques

Temporal distribution

Maastrichtian (72.2–66 Ma)

Campanian (83.6–72.2 Ma)

Santonian (85.7–83.6 Ma)

Bibliography

Original description

P. Mocho, F. Escaso, and F. Marcos-Fernández, A. Páramo, J. L. Sanz, D. Vidal, F. Ortega. 2024. A Spanish saltasauroid titanosaur reveals Europe as a melting pot of endemic and immigrant sauropods in the Late Cretaceous. Communications Biology 7:1016:1-10 DOI ↗

Bibliography (46)

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