Pronunciation: va-heenh
Meaning: Traveller
Author/s: Curry Rogers et al. (2014)
Synonyms: None known
First Discovery: Mahajanga, Madagascar
Discovery Chart Position: #861
Vahiny depereti
For thirteen years Rapetosaurus hogged the limelight as Madagascar's only confirmed titanosaur; however, paleontologists had a hunch that there was a second, more rare one in the area based on a trickle of oddly "flat" and elongated tail vertebrae which had long been referred to simply as "Malagasy Taxon B". Their suspicions were confirmed in 2005 by the discovery of a unique and diognostic titanosaur braincase that Curry-Rogers named Vahiny depereti in 2014 but, funnily enough, she resisted the urge to assign the fragmentary and scattered remains of MTB to it, mainly because there is nothing to prove that these tail and skull bones belong to each end of the same critter.
Although it shared the island of Madagascar with Rapetosaurus, Vahiny is most similar to Jainosaurus from the Late Cretaceous of India, but it also sports features in common with Muyelensaurus and Pitekunsaurus which are both from South America.
Although it shared the island of Madagascar with Rapetosaurus, Vahiny is most similar to Jainosaurus from the Late Cretaceous of India, but it also sports features in common with Muyelensaurus and Pitekunsaurus which are both from South America.
(Charles Depéret's traveller)Etymology
Vahiny (va-heenh) is a Malagasy word which means "traveller" (or visitor) and refers to its rarity in the Mahajanga Basin. By the by, "Vahiny Madagascar" is a humanitarian society who provide assistance to needy families in the highlands of Madagascar. It has nothing to do with the dinosaur or its name though. The species epithet, depereti, honours French geologist and paleontologist Charles Jean Julien Depéret: a pioneer of paleontology on Madagascar.
Discovery
The first confirmed remains of Vahiny were discovered at Locality MAD 96-07 in the Anembalemba Member of the Maevarano Formation, Berivotra, Mahajanga Basin, Madagascar, by Andy Farke in 2005, along with fragmentary remnants of titanosaurs, crocodiles, theropods, and turtles.
The holotype (UA 9940) is a partial braincase. Referred material includes a bone from the base of a juvenile skull (FMNH PR 3046), known as the "basioccipital", from Locality MAD 93-18.
