Amargasaurus Profile

Amargasaurus Profile Name: Amargasaurus (Greek for La Amarga reptile:); articulated ah-MAR-gah-SORE-us Living space: Woodlands of South America Recorded Period: Early Cretaceous (130 million years prior) Size and Weight: About 30 feet in length and three tons Diet: Plants Recognizing Characteristics: Relatively little size; conspicuous spines lining neck and back About Amargasaurus A large portion of the sauropods of the Mesozoic Era looked essentially like practically every other sauropod-long necks, squat trunks, long tails and elephant-like legs-however Amargasaurus was the special case that demonstrated the standard. This generally thin plant-eater (just around 30 feet in length from head to tail and a few tons) had a line of sharp spines coating its neck and back, the main sauropod known to have had such an overwhelming component. (Valid, the later titanosaurs of the Cretaceous time frame, direct relatives of the sauropods, were secured with scutes and sharp handles, however these were not even close as resplendent as those on Amargasaurus.) For what reason did the South American Amargasaurus develop such unmistakable spines? Likewise with also prepared dinosaurs (like the cruised Spinosaurus and Ouranosaurus), there are different prospects: the spines may have assisted with dissuading predators, they may have had a job in temperature guideline (that is, on the off chance that they were secured by a flimsy fold of skin fit for dispersing heat), or, no doubt, they may just have been an explicitly chosen trademark (Amargasaurus guys with increasingly noticeable spines being progressively appealing to females during mating season). As particular as it might have been, Amargasaurus seems to have been firmly identified with two other irregular sauropods: Dicraeosaurus, which was additionally outfitted with (a lot shorter) spines exuding from its neck and upper back, and Brachytrachelopan, which was recognized by its surprisingly short neck, presumably a developmental adjustment to the kinds of food accessible in its South American environment. There are different instances of sauropods adjusting decently fast to the assets of their biological systems. Consider Europasaurus, a slight plant eater that scarcely gauged a solitary ton since it was confined to an island territory. Tragically, our insight into Amargasaurus is constrained by the way that just a single fossil example of this dinosaur is known, found in Argentina in 1984 however just depicted in 1991 by the noticeable South American scientist Jose F. Bonaparte. (Uncommonly, this example incorporates some portion of Amargasaurus skull, an irregularity since the skulls of sauropods are effortlessly disengaged from the remainder of their skeletons in the afterlife). Strangely, a similar endeavor answerable for the revelation of Amargasaurus likewise uncovered the sort example of Carnotaurus, a short-furnished, meat-eating dinosaur that lived around 50 million years after the fact!