Pronunciation: EE-lal-TIE-tan
Meaning: Elal giant
Author/s: Mannion and Otero (2012)
Synonyms: None known
First Discovery: Chubut, Argentina
Acta Ordinal: #808
Elaltitan lilloi
As is almost routine for South American sauropods, Elaltitan is based on remains that were initially assigned to another critter... but in this case it was two critters: firstly, Antarctosaurus in 1979 and then Argyrosaurus in 1986. The unique traits of Elaltitan were rumbled by Phil Mannion and Alejandro Otero during a reappraisal of remains assigned to Argyrosaurus superbus, and its fossils, complete with uniquely weird features of its vertebrae and ankles, were christened in 2012.
The broader picture revealed just how crowded South America had become: spanning 65 million years of the Cretaceous, almost forty titanosauriform genera—thirty?one from Argentina, seven from Brazil, and one from Chile—plus indeterminate body fossils and trackways extending the record into Uruguay, Bolivia, and Peru—had been named as of 2012, most of them coined within the previous ten years. It was a boom driven by rapid discovery, and Mannion and Otero were clear that some of those names would almost certainly collapse into synonyms once better specimens and careful comparisons caught up. The irony, of course, is that Elaltitan did the opposite: arising from the very bone?pile whose list of names was expected to shrink under scrutiny.
The broader picture revealed just how crowded South America had become: spanning 65 million years of the Cretaceous, almost forty titanosauriform genera—thirty?one from Argentina, seven from Brazil, and one from Chile—plus indeterminate body fossils and trackways extending the record into Uruguay, Bolivia, and Peru—had been named as of 2012, most of them coined within the previous ten years. It was a boom driven by rapid discovery, and Mannion and Otero were clear that some of those names would almost certainly collapse into synonyms once better specimens and careful comparisons caught up. The irony, of course, is that Elaltitan did the opposite: arising from the very bone?pile whose list of names was expected to shrink under scrutiny.
Etymology
Elaltitan is derived from "Elal" (creator god of the Tehuelche people of Chubut Province) and "titan" (Titans were the primordial giant gods in Greek mythology, residents of Mount Olympus before Zeus booted them out). The species epithet, lilloi, honors Miguel Lillo for his contribution to natural sciences in Tucumán.
Discovery
The remains of Elaltitan were discovered in the "upper member" of the Bajo Barreal Formation, between a bend in the right bank of the Senguerr River and the Pampa de María Santísima, Sierra de San Bernardo, Chubut Province, Argentina, in 1976 by a José Bonaparte-led expedition of the Fundación Miguel Lillo and the Universidad Nacional de Tucumán. The holotype (PVL 4628 and MACN-CH 217) is a partial skeleton including the left shoulder blade, the arm above the wrist, a partial hip, three back and two tail vertebrae, and most of a leg if you add the left and right bits together, including the first heel bone ever discovered on a titanosaur. Although discovered together and originally housed at the Colección de Paleontología de Vertebrados de la Fundación Instituto Miguel Lillo in Tucumán as PVL 4628, the vertebrae were later moved to the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales “Bernardino Rivadavia” in Buenos Aires and recorded as MACN-CH 217. It was initially listed by Bonaparte and Gasparini as hailing from Laguna Palacios, but that Formation doesn't actally crop out in the Sierra de San Bernardo area.
Preparator
José Fernando Bonaparte.
