#diamantinasaurus

Diamantinasaurus matildae was a sauropod dinosaur that lived in what is now northeastern Australia during the Late Cretaceous, about 94 million years ago.

It was either part of an early evolutionary branch of the titanosaurs, or at least very closely related to them.

Growing up to around 15m long (~50'), it's represented by multiple specimens of varying ages, including one of the most complete individual necks of any sauropod. Unlike later-diverging titanosaurs it still had thumb claws on its hands, and it's unclear if it had any osteoderm armor.

A patch of preserved skin shows polygonal scales with a rough bumpy surface texture — but based on what's now known from other types of sauropod it probably had a variety of other scale shapes and sizes across different regions of its body.

Recent discoveries of titanosaurian footprints in Mongolia also suggest that the large claws on these sauropods' hind feet were mostly buried in soft tissue, with only the tips visible in life.

Fossilized gut contents in one specimen indicate Diamantinasaurus was a generalist herbivore eating a wide range of plant species, browsing from low to high foliage heights, and swallowing its bites without chewing. This particular individual wasn't fully grown, however, and so it may have been in the process of transitioning from a low-level "juvenile" diet to a higher-level "adult" one.

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And so here is the result of the Winton Formation stream!

Home of Australovenator, a bunch of sauropods and lots of other critters. Preserved in this formation are the animal of a coastal river system.

Dinovember 2024 Day 26: Discoveries Down Under

The next episode of Dinosaurs Lately, is up - see what's been published on the titanosaurs, lately.