a lirainosaurine titanosaurian sauropod dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of France.
Pronunciation: at-sin-ga-no-sor-us
Meaning: Gypsy lizard
Author/s: Garcia
et al. (
2010)
Synonyms: None known
First Discovery: Bouches-du-Rhône, France
Discovery Chart Position: #727
Atsinganosaurus velauciensis
(Gypsy lizard from Velaux)Etymology
Atsinganosaurus is derived from the Greek "atsinganos" (gipsy), referring to the suspected migration of titanosaurs between western and eastern Europe via temporary land bridges as sea levels rose and fell during the Late Cretaceous, and "sauros" (lizard). The
species epithet,
velauciensis, is derived from "Velaucio" (the Latin name for Velaux, referring to the city of Velaux-La Bastide Neuve where the fossils were found) and the Latin "ensis" (from).
Discovery
The first remains of
Atsinganosaurus were discovered in the Argiles et Grès à Reptiles Formation (Aix-en-Provence Basin) at Velaux-La Bastide Neuve, Bouches-du-Rhône Department of Provence, southern France, by Xavier Valentin in 1992. Another titanosaur (that Verónica Díez Díaz
et al. named
Garrigatitan meridionalis in 2020) and a rhabdodontid (that Godefroit
et al. named
Matheronodon provincialis in 2017) were found in the same quarry.
The
holotype (VBN.93.01. A, B, C and D) is four back vertebrae, housed in the collections of the
Université de Poitiers, France.
Referred material from the same site:
Three neck vertebrae (VBN.93.12 A, B and C), a shoulder blade (VBN.93.11), a
metatarsal (VBN.93.10) and a tail vertebra (VBN.93.03-08), stored at Université de Poitiers, France.
Teeth (VBN.02.03, 22 and 53), half of a shoulder girdle (VBN.02.78 A and B), a back vertebra (VBN.02.99), a fused block of hip vertebrae (VBN.02.82), a metacarpal (VBN.02.90), a shin (VBN.02.109) and a tail vertebra (VBN.02.110), housed at Musée de Paléontologie, Université de Provence, France.
An upper arm (VBN.00.12) and tail three vertebrae (VBN.00.01—03), housed at Musée archéologique de Velaux, France.
A tooth (VBN.93.MHNA.99.21), a humerus (VBN.93.MHNA.99.52), and three tail vertebrae (VBN.93.MHNA.99.32—34), housed at Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle d’Aix-en-Provence,
France.
Further remains, housed in the municipality palaeontological and archaeological structures of Velaux, including skull fragments, teeth, vertebrae from the neck, back and tail, ribs, chevrons, parts of the shoulder and pelvic girdles, and bones from the arm, leg, hand and foot, from at least three individuals, were excavated from the same site in 2009 and 2012.
• Thouand E (2004) "Biodiversité reptilienne et paléoenvironnement d'un gisement campanien du Bassin d'Aix-en-Provence: La Bastide Neuve (Velaux)".
Master PPP2, Université Montpellier II, unpublished.
• Jianu C-M and Boekschoten GJ (1999) "The Hateg area: island or outpost?".
Deinsea, 7: 195-198.
• Rage J-C (2002) "
The continental Late Cretaceous of Europe: towards a better understanding".
Comptes Rendus Palevol, 1(5): 257–258. DOI: 10.1016/S1631-0683(02)00038-6.
• Dalla Vecchia FM (2005) "Between Gondwana and Laurasia: Cretaceous sauropods in an intraoceanic carbonate platform". Page 395-429 in Tidwell and Carpenter (eds.) "
Thunder-Lizards: The Sauropodomorph
Dinosaurs".
• Garcia G, Amico S, Fournier F, Thouand E and Valentin X (2010) "A new titanosaur genus (Dinosauria, Sauropoda) from the Late Cretaceous of southern France and its paleobiogeographic implications".
Bulletin de la Société Géologique de France, 181(3):
269-277. DOI: 10.2113/gssgfbull.181.3.269.
• Vila B, Galobart A, Canudo JI, Le Loeff J, Dinarès-Turell J, Riera V, Oms O, Tortosa T and Gaete R (2012) "The diversity of sauropod dinosaurs and their first taxonomic succession from the latest Cretaceous of southwestern Europe: Clues to demise and extinction".
Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 350–352 (15): 19–38. DOI: 10.1016/j.palaeo.2012.06.008.
• Díez Díaz V, Garcia G, Pereda-Suberbiola X, Jentgen-Ceschino B, Stein K, Godefroit P and Valentin X (2018) "The titanosaurian dinosaur
Atsinganosaurus velauciensis (Sauropoda) from the Upper Cretaceous of southern France: New material, phylogenetic affinities, and palaeobiogeographical implications".
Cretaceous Research, 91: 429–456. DOI: 10.1016/j.cretres.2018.06.015.
• Díez Díaz V, Garcia G, Pereda-Suberbiola X, Jentgen-Ceschino B, Stein K, Godefroit P and Valentin X (2021) "A new titanosaur (Dinosauria: Sauropoda) from the Upper Cretaceous of Velaux-La-Bastide Neuve (southern France)".
Historical Biology, 33(11): 2998–3017. DOI: 10.1080/08912963.2020.1841184.
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To cite this page:
Atkinson, L.
"
ATSINGANOSAURUS :: from DinoChecker's dinosaur archive".
‹
http://www.dinochecker.com/dinosaurs/ATSINGANOSAURUS›. Web access: 06th Mar 2026.
