Pronunciation: NEW-kin-SOR-us
Meaning: Neuquén lizard
Author/s: Powell (1992)
Synonyms: See below
First Discovery: Neuquén, Argentina
Discovery Chart Position: #369
Neuquensaurus australis
Neuquensaurus belongs to a family of sauropod dinosaurs known as Titanosauria, the broad-chested "giant lizards" named after the Titans: the primordial giant deities who ruled Mount Olympus before Zeus and Co. turned up flexing their various body parts. Ironically, the size and proportions of Neuquensaurus place it among the smallest sauropods ever known. It hasn't always been known as Neuquensaurus, either.
The first remains of Neuquensaurus were originally named Titanosaurus australis by Richard Lydekker in 1893 during his appointment at the Museo de La Plata where he was tasked with picking the bones (pardon the pun) out of the museum's mishmash of mammal and reptile fossils from Neuquen. Exactly where those bones were discovered is a little hazy, as they were mostly "picked up by expedition members, lying loose on the surface of the country", and their locality data, coordinates, and photos of landmarks were mostly lacking. Nevertheless, Lydekker took a shine to the collection's sauropod bones and noticed a set of six vertebrae from the right bank of the Rio Neuquen that were directly comparable to those of Titanosaurus indicus: the Titanosaurus type specimen that he had coined in 1887 during a stint at the Geological Survey of India in Kolkata. So, they ended up assigned to Titanosaurus because of apparent similarities, but as a new species, Titanosaurus australis, because they had a few unique features of their own. But as it happens, they didn't have much in common with Titanosaurus at all and became the holotype of Neuquensaurus when Powell officially named it in 1992, six years after coining the name in his PhD thesis and two after Jack McIntosh had erroneously reassigned them to Saltasaurus.
The first remains of Neuquensaurus were originally named Titanosaurus australis by Richard Lydekker in 1893 during his appointment at the Museo de La Plata where he was tasked with picking the bones (pardon the pun) out of the museum's mishmash of mammal and reptile fossils from Neuquen. Exactly where those bones were discovered is a little hazy, as they were mostly "picked up by expedition members, lying loose on the surface of the country", and their locality data, coordinates, and photos of landmarks were mostly lacking. Nevertheless, Lydekker took a shine to the collection's sauropod bones and noticed a set of six vertebrae from the right bank of the Rio Neuquen that were directly comparable to those of Titanosaurus indicus: the Titanosaurus type specimen that he had coined in 1887 during a stint at the Geological Survey of India in Kolkata. So, they ended up assigned to Titanosaurus because of apparent similarities, but as a new species, Titanosaurus australis, because they had a few unique features of their own. But as it happens, they didn't have much in common with Titanosaurus at all and became the holotype of Neuquensaurus when Powell officially named it in 1992, six years after coining the name in his PhD thesis and two after Jack McIntosh had erroneously reassigned them to Saltasaurus.
(Southern Neuquén lizard)Etymology
Neuquensaurus is derived from "Neuquén" (the river/city/province where it was discovered) and the Greek "sauros" (lizard).The species epithet, australis, means "southern" in Latin. Microcoelus patagonicus? (Lydekker, 1893)
Titanosaurus nanus (Lydekker, 1893)
Titanosaurus australis (Lydekker, 1893)
Titanosaurus robustus (von Huene, 1929)
Loricosaurus scutatus (von Huene, 1929)
Loricosaurus noricus? (von Huene, 1929)
Saltasaurus australis (McIntosh, 1990)—previously known as Titanosaurus australis
Saltasaurus robustus (McIntosh, 1990—previously known as Titanosaurus robustus
Discovery
The first remains of Neuquensaurus, originally named "Titanosaurus" australis by Richard Lydekker in 1893, were discovered between 1887 and 1891 in the Anacleto Formation on the right bank of the Neuquén River (Río Neuquén), "some kilometers from the railway bridge", near the city of Neuquén. Probably. Lydekker didn't discover the remains himself and it's likely he had to rely on word of mouth from F. Romero, Santiago Roth and other expedition members for location information as it seems they all completely "forgot" to draw maps or illustrate quarries. Whoopsie-daisy. The original holotype, MLP Ly 1-6, consists of six tail vertebrae, but D'Emic and Wilson discovered a perfectly matching sacrum (a series of fused hip vertebrae) whilst inspecting the collections of Museo de la Plata in 2011 which stretched the holotype to MLP Ly 1-7.
