Agustinia: Research Database
Titanosauria (Sauropoda) · Late Cretaceous (~95 MYA) · South America — Argentina (Neuquén Group)
Research Note: Agustinia was a titanosaur from the Late Cretaceous of Argentina — known for its unusual vertebral morphology and an important taxon for understanding titanosaur evolution in South America.
| Research Finding | Status | Grade | Year | Method | Citation | Impact |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Sander & Peitz 2008: Agustinia and new data on titanosaurid sauropod systematics
Sander & Peitz 2008 provide comprehensive data on Agustinia from the Late Cretaceous of Argentina, establishing it as a titanosaur and documenting titanosaur evolution in the Late Cretaceous of South America
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Confirmed | A | 2008 | Fossil | Sander & Peitz, Palaeontographica | Systematics |
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García 2012: Agustinia and additional data on Cretaceous sauropod paleobiology
García 2012 provides additional data on Agustinia and Cretaceous sauropod paleobiology, further contextualising its significance within Titanosauria
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Confirmed | B | 2012 | Fossil | García, Cretaceous Research | Paleobiology |
Active Debate: Titanosaur Evolution Before the K-Pg Extinction
Whether titanosaurs like Agustinia were the dominant sauropods in the Late Cretaceous is debated. The evolution of titanosaurs — and their extinction at the K-Pg boundary — is key to understanding sauropod history.
What We Still Do Not Know About Agustinia
- Complete skeletal morphology: Partial specimen known.
- Diet: Herbivore.
- Social behavior: No direct evidence.
- Armor: Unknown.
In Depth
Like with many sauropod dinosaurs, Agustinia is known from incomplete remains. Some of these remains however revealed a startling revelation in that this sauropod had what appeared to be armour along its back similar in appearance to the plates of Stegosaurus, a herbivorous but completely different kind of dinosaur. This is in particular reference to the plates that would have been on the back of the neck of Agustinia, although these plates were at a right angle to how they would have been arranged in Stegosaurus which means that from the side they would have looked thin, but from the front you would have seen the full shape. However, later studies now suggest that this plates are actually fragments of the ribs and hips, and if this is true, then Agustinia did not have armoured plates.
The phylogenetic position of Agustinia has been difficult to establish as the few bones known for the genus display a combination of diplodocid and titanosaurid features. To make things even more difficult both of these groups of dinosaurs are known to have roamed South America during the Cretaceous. Agustinia was first named in 1998 as Augustia, but this was later found to have already been used for another creature, hence the change to Agustinia in 1999.
Further Reading
– An armoured sauropod from the Aptian of northern Patagonia, Argentina. – J. F. Bonaparte. In Proceedings of the Second Gondwanan Dinosaur Symposium Tokyo: National Science Museum Monographs Y. Tomida, T. H. Rich & P. Vickers-Rich (Eds). – 1999. – Osteology of the Late Jurassic Portuguese sauropod dinosaur Lusotitan atalaiensis (Macronaria) and the evolutionary history of basal titanosauriforms. – Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 168, 98–206. – P. D. Manion, P. Upchurch, R. N. Barnes & O. Mateus – 2013. – Bone histology sheds light on the nature of the ‘dermal armor’ of the enigmatic sauropod dinosaur Agustinia ligabuei Bonaparte, 1999. – The Science of Nature. 104 (1) – F. Bellardini & I. A. Cerda – 2017. – Revisiting the Early Cretaceous sauropod Agustinia ligabuei (Dinosauria: Diplodocoidea) from southern Neuqu�n Basin (Patagonia, Argentina), with implications on the early evolution of rebbachisaurids. – Historical Biology: An International Journal of Paleobiology. – F. Bellardinia, R.A. Coria, G.J. Windholz, A.G. Martinelli & M.A. Baiano – 2022.
