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| N. zapati would have reached a length of about 66 feet (20 meters) and had the column-like legs, long body, and tail of a titanosaur. (Photo courtesy of Jorge A González) |
Ninjatitan zapati was a dinosaur that lived 140 million years ago, 20 million years before the next titanosaur genus. This group of massive sauropods is thought to have first appeared on the supercontinent Gondwana, which included what is now South America, Antarctica, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, the Indian subcontinent, and Saudi Arabia.
Ninjatitan zapati was a dinosaur that lived 140 million years ago, 20 million years before the next titanosaur genus. The supercontinent Gondwana, which comprised what is now South America, Antarctica, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, the Indian subcontinent, and Saudi Arabia, is believed to be where this group of large sauropods first appeared.
Titanosaurs could reach heights of up to 131 feet (40 metres), but N. zapati was only 66 feet (20 metres) long. According to study author Pablo Ariel Gallina, a palaeontologist at Argentina's National Scientific and Technical Research Council, it still had the column-like legs, long body, and tail of a typical titanosaur.
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| This titanosaur's remains were discovered in Argentina's Baja Colorada Formation. (Photo courtesy of Jorge A González) |
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| Any of the N. zapati vertebrae discovered. (Photo courtesy of Jorge A González) |
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| Paleontologists discovered many titanosaur fossils, including these scapula bones. (Photo courtesy of Jorge A González) |
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| The bones of N. zapati were carefully excavated by paleontologists. (Photo courtesy of Jorge A González) |
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| N. zapati would have reached a length of about 66 feet (20 meters) and had the column-like legs, long body, and tail of a titanosaur. (Photo courtesy of Jorge A González) |
The dinosaur was named
after Sebastián "Ninja" Apestegua, a vertebrate palaeontologist who
led the first excavations of the Bajada Colorado Formation, where the dinosaur
was found, from 2010 to 2014. Rogelio "Mupi" Zapata, a technician at
the Museo Municipal Ernesto Bachman who also made significant discoveries at
the site, was given the name Zapati.
The discovery places titanosaurs in Gondwana during the early Cretaceous period, suggesting that they had already developed themselves, according to Gallina. Older long-neck dinosaurs have been found before, including representatives of the titanosauriforms, a larger group that includes the brachiosaurids and seems to have emerged in the late Jurassic. N. zapati, on the other hand, is the earliest titanosaur known to science.
The finding backs up
what palaeontologists had hypothesised based on the group's global
distribution: that it originated early in Gondwana and then spread. According
to a 2016 analysis, titanosaurs originated in what is now South America, spread
rapidly across Gondwana, and eventually reached Europe via North Africa.
Titanosaurs arrived in North America from South America and Asia through Europe
in the middle to late Cretaceous. According to Gallina, the latest discovery
confirms the theory.
In an email to Live Science, he wrote, "The Bajada Colorada dinosaur fauna
represents one of the most complex and unusual associations not previously
recorded from the lowermost Cretaceous deposits worldwide, a moment in dinosaur
evolution little explored.
Many fascinating titanosaurs have been found in Neuquén province, including one unidentified specimen discovered in January that could be the heaviest titanosaur ever discovered. Paleontologists are still excavating the new specimen, but the competition, Patagotitan mayorum, weighed more than 10 times as much as an African elephant at 69 tonnes 62 metric tonnes.
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