Abditosaurus kuehnei

Abditosaurus is an extinct genus of titanosaurian sauropod dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) Conques Formation of Catalonia, Spain. The genus contains a single species, Abditosaurus kuehnei, known from a partial specimen representing the most complete titanosaur skeleton found in Europe. Phylogenetic analyses recover it within a clade of South American and African saltasaurines, distinct from other insular dwarf sauropods from the European archipelago. Abditosaurus inhabited the Ibero-Armorican Island, a prehistoric island made up of what is now Spain, Portugal, and southern France, and would have been the largest titanosaur species in its environment.

Abditosaurus kuehnei

SpinoDragon145 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
AbditosaurusPBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Sauropoda
Life habit
ground dwelling, gregariousPBDB, for Sauropoda
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Sauropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Sauropoda

Time the record covers

At most 6.2 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 72.2 Mya and 66 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Late Cretaceous — about 2 of 2 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 2 occurrences72–72 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences72–72 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences72–72 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences72–71 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences71–71 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences71–71 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences71–71 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences71–70 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences70–70 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences70–70 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences70–70 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences70–69 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences69–69 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences69–69 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences69–69 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences69–68 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences68–68 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences68–68 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences68–68 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences68–67 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences67–67 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences67–67 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences67–67 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences67–66 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences66–66 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences66–66 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences72.7 Mya65.5 Mya

2 occurrences of Abditosaurus kuehnei on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

2 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

1 formation

Conques — 42.16°N, 0.97°E

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The named rock units Abditosaurus kuehnei has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Abditosaurus kuehnei and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Abditosaurus kuehnei and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

5 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Abditosaurus kuehnei, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

1 reference

Each of the 2 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Abditosaurus kuehnei

Credit
SpinoDragon145
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Abditosaurus kuehnei was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itAbditosaurus through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Vila et al. 2022