Eutitanosauria

Eutitanosauria is a clade of titanosaurs, encompassing the more derived members of the group and characterized by the absence of the hyposphene-hypantrum articulation and possibly the presence of osteoderms. The group was first named by Sanz and colleagues in 1999, who used it to unite the group of Argyrosaurus, Lirainosaurus, Saltasaurus and the Peiropolis titanosaur. However, this definition was not used as it made the group equivalent to Saltasauridae, so Saldago redefined it in 2003 to be all titanosaurs closer to Saltasaurus than Epachthosaurus. This definition created Eutitanosauria as the sister group to Epachthosaurinae, but was problematic due to the variable nature of Epachthosaurus. Eutitanosauria was often broadly similar to Lithostrotia, and has often been unused or unlabelled on phylogenies. Sometimes Epachthosaurus would be more primitive than Malawisaurus, making Eutitanosauria more encompassing than Lithostrotia, or Epachthosaurus could nest close to Colossosauria and limit Eutitanosauria to a smaller group of saltasauroids. Because of the flexible nature of Epachthosaurus in basal titanosaur phylogeny, Carballido and colleagues redefined the group in 2022 to include the smallest clade of both Patagotitan, a colossosaur, and Saltasaurus, creating a node-stem clade with Colossosauria and Saltasauroidea, presenting the informal cladogram of stable titanosaur clades below.

Eutitanosauria

Zissoudisctrucker · 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
TitanosauriaPBDB
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 least 60 million years on record.

The record covers at least 132.6 Mya to 72.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 137.05 Mya to 66 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 5 of 47 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 42 of 47 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 47 occurrences138–136 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences136–134 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences134–131 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences114–111 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences111–109 Mya — about 1 occurrence109–106 Mya — about 2 occurrences106–104 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences104–102 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences102–99 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences99–97 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences97–94 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences94–92 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences92–89 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences89–87 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences87–84 Mya — about 2 occurrences84–82 Mya — about 3 occurrences82–79 Mya — about 3 occurrences79–77 Mya — about 3 occurrences77–74 Mya — about 3 occurrences74–72 Mya — about 4 occurrences72–70 Mya — about 9 occurrences70–67 Mya — about 9 occurrences67–65 Mya — about 4 occurrences132.6 Mya72.2 Mya138 Mya65 Mya

47 occurrences of Eutitanosauria 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

47 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

20 formations

Sebeş — 46.04°N, 23.52°ESebeş — 45.99°N, 23.59°ESierra Perenchiza — 39.60°N, 0.97°WBajo de la Carpa — 39.63°S, 68.35°WBajo de la Carpa — 39.73°S, 68.52°WBajo de la Carpa — 37.59°S, 69.32°WDensuș-Ciula — 45.62°N, 22.78°ESînpetru — 45.55°N, 22.92°ESînpetru — 45.56°N, 22.92°EVillalba de la Sierra — 39.95°N, 2.02°WVillalba de la Sierra — 40.41°N, 2.70°WCerro Fortaleza — 49.88°S, 71.98°WCerro Fortaleza — 49.95°S, 72.05°WVitoria — 42.66°N, 2.63°WMarnes Rouges Inférieures — 42.91°N, 2.20°EGrès à Reptiles — 43.35°N, 2.95°EGrès à Reptiles — 43.60°N, 6.11°EPui Beds — 45.49°N, 23.09°ERâul Mare — 45.58°N, 22.93°EPoudingue ferrugineux — 49.52°N, 0.10°ESedano — 42.66°N, 2.63°WHuincul — 38.92°S, 69.06°WArgiles rutilantes — 43.50°N, 5.73°EMurtoi — 51.20°N, 106.27°ECerro Barcino — 43.84°S, 68.58°WGuichón — 31.97°S, 57.73°WAllen — 39.50°S, 67.37°W

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The named rock units Eutitanosauria has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Eutitanosauria and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Eutitanosauria and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

254 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 41 sites for Eutitanosauria, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

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

30 references

Each of the 47 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. 18 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Eutitanosauria

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

No 3D scan of Eutitanosauria 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 itTitanosauria through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Sanz et al. 1999