Huge Alamosaurus was biggest NA sauropod

[bh480@scn.org]

From: Ben Creisler
bh480@scn.org


In case this new online advance publication paper has not 
been mentioned yet:

Denver W. Fowler and Robert M. Sullivan (2011)
The first giant titanosaurian sauropod from the Upper 
Cretaceous of North America.
Acta Palaeontologica Polonica in press
available online 07 Feb 2011 
doi:10.4202/app.2010.0105
http://app.pan.pl/article/item/app20100105.html

Argentinosaurus (Cenomanian, Argentina) is generally 
accepted as being the largest dinosaur so far discovered 
and is one of several giant titanosaurian sauropods known 
from the Upper Cretaceous of South America and Asia, but 
suprisingly not from North America. Here we present the 
first evidence of giant titanosaurian sauropods from the 
Upper Cretaceous of North America: two enormous vertebrae 
and a partial femur, from the Naashoibito Member of the 
Ojo Alamo Formation, New Mexico, and referred to 
Alamosaurus sanjuanensis. One of the new vertebrae, a 
posterior cervical, is comparable in size to a posterior 
cervical described for Puertasaurus: an Argentinosaurus-
sized titanosaurian from the Maastrichtian of Argentina. 
This makes A. sanjuanensis the largest dinosaur from 
North America, and among the largest in the world. These 
findings indicate that A. sanjuanensis is diagnosed based 
on immature remains, which may have implications for 
cladistic analyses.