Baurutitan

Baurutitan is a titanosaur sauropod from the latest Cretaceous beds of the Bauru Group in Minas Gerais, Brazil. Estimated to have measured roughly twelve to fourteen metres in total length, it represents a mid-sized herbivore adapted to browse inland tropical environments. Discovered during mid-twentieth-century excavations led by pioneer palaeontologist Llewellyn Ivor Price, its holotype consists of an articulated sequence of sacral and anterior tail vertebrae. Detailed study of these bones revealed complex laminae and joints linking it closely to aeolosaurins and other derived South American titanosaurs. Like its relatives, Baurutitan possessed a robust, low-slung body that traversed varied terrain in an environment characterised by seasonal rainfall and river channels, sharing its Late Cretaceous habitat with abelisaurid predators and fellow titanosaurians.

It is known primarily from a series of articulated sacral and caudal vertebrae exhibiting unique spinoprezygapophyseal laminae.

Where and when

Baurutitan lived in the Late Cretaceous, from 72.1 to 66 million years ago (Maastrichtian age). Its remains come from Brazil, in the Marilia Formation.

The numbers

Length 13 m (estimates run from 12 to 14 m). Mass about 9.4 t. Hip height about 3 m. That is 7.6 human-lengths, or 1.16 of a double-decker bus. These are estimates from partial skeleton; fields marked estimated by the site are length, mass, hip height.

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