Pronunciation: POO-na-TIE-tuhn
Meaning: Puna giant
Author/s: Hechenleitner et al. (2020)
Synonyms: None known
First Discovery: La Rioja, Argentina
Acta Ordinal: #1049
Punatitan coughlini
After noting how the fragmentary and uneven record of titanosaurs outside Patagonia and southwestern Brazil has long obscured continent-wide patterns of their evolution and dispersal, E. Martín Hechenleitner and colleagues named two new species from the Andean ranges of La Rioja Province, north-west Argentina, in 2019—both based on unusually informative fossils. One of those was Punatitan coughlini, a medium-sized sauropod from the Late Cretaceous Ciénaga del Río Huaco Formation near Quebrada de Santo Domingo.
Its skeleton consists of parts of the axial skeleton, including bones from the neck, back, and pelvis, enough to outline a roughly 14-meter animal with overall features similar to those of most other titanosaurians. But it also includes a run of thirteen tail vertebrae in sequence, which sport the distinctive features of a particular branch of South American titanosaurians called Aeolosaurini — a group otherwise best known from lowland regions far from the Andes.
Together with the diminutive Bravasaurus, Punatitan hints at a community where titanosaurs of very different sizes lived side by side in an area that also preserves one of the world's densest concentrations of titanosaur eggs. Whether those nests belonged to Punatitan, Bravasaurus, neither or both remains uncertain, but together these discoveries highlight northern Argentina as a key region for understanding the diversity and ecological complexity of the last South American sauropods.
Its skeleton consists of parts of the axial skeleton, including bones from the neck, back, and pelvis, enough to outline a roughly 14-meter animal with overall features similar to those of most other titanosaurians. But it also includes a run of thirteen tail vertebrae in sequence, which sport the distinctive features of a particular branch of South American titanosaurians called Aeolosaurini — a group otherwise best known from lowland regions far from the Andes.
Together with the diminutive Bravasaurus, Punatitan hints at a community where titanosaurs of very different sizes lived side by side in an area that also preserves one of the world's densest concentrations of titanosaur eggs. Whether those nests belonged to Punatitan, Bravasaurus, neither or both remains uncertain, but together these discoveries highlight northern Argentina as a key region for understanding the diversity and ecological complexity of the last South American sauropods.
(Coughlin's Puna Giant)Etymology
Punatitan is derived from "Puna" (the local name that distinguishes the oxygen-depleted atmosphere typical of the high Andes) and the Greek "titan" (a mythological giant deity from Greek mythology).
The species epithet, coughlini, honours geologist Tim Coughlin, who reported the first dinosaur fossils in the area.
ZooBank registry: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:658B5D64-1432-46BC-B543-DFF1155EC71E.
Discovery
The remains of Punatitan were discovered in sandstone levels 170 meters above the base of the Ciénaga del Río Huaco Formation at Quebrada de Santo Domingo (QSD) in the Andes of La Rioja, northwestern Argentina. The Quebrada de Santo Domingo locality is famous for its copious fossilised sauropod eggs, making it one of the largest nesting sites documented worldwide.
The holotype (CRILAR-Pv 614) is a partial skeleton, including a neck vertebra, two back vertebrae, a partial block of hip vertebrae, a series of thirteen tail vertebrae, two hip bones (right pubis and left ischium), and several ribs.
Preparators
Sergio de la Vega, Carlos Bustamante, Julia Desojo, Hernán Aciar, Leonel Acosta, Marcelo Miñana, Victoria Fernandez Blanco, Tomaz Melo, Jimena Trotteyn, Mariano Larrovere, Marcos Macchioli, Tatiana Sánchez, Gabriel Hechenleitner, Eugenio Sanchez, and Walter Bustamante.
