Dinosaurs / Cretaceous / Notocolossus
Notocolossus
Cretaceous NO-toe-coh-LOSS-us, “southern colossus”
Notocolossus is a gigantic titanosaur discovered in Mendoza Province, Argentina, dating to the Santonian stage of the Late Cretaceous. 8 metres long and an articulated hind foot. The anatomy of its foot proved particularly illuminating for sauropod research, as pes remains are exceptionally rare among giant titanosaurs. The bones show shortened, robust metatarsals and reduced unguals, creating a compact and columnar foot structure adapted to distribute immense gravitational loads across soft terrain. Estimates place its body mass among the upper echelon of terrestrial vertebrates. As a massive herbivore, Notocolossus would have processed colossal quantities of vegetation daily. Its discovery provided essential structural insights into how the skeleton of hyper-robust titanosaurs adapted to withstand extreme mechanical forces during the final phases of sauropod evolution.
It preserved a complete hind foot that revealed exceptionally short, stout metatarsals suited for supporting colossal weights.
Where and when
Notocolossus lived in the Late Cretaceous, from 86.3 to 83.6 million years ago (Santonian age). Its remains come from Argentina, in the Plottier Formation.
The numbers
Length 27 m (estimates run from 25 to 28 m). Mass about 49 t. Hip height about 5 m. That is 15.6 human-lengths, or 2.37 of a double-decker bus. These are estimates from partial skeleton; fields marked estimated by the site are length, mass, hip height.