Pilmatueia

The type species, Pilmatueia faundezi, was described in 2018 by Rodolfo Coria and colleagues. The genus name is derived from the Pilmatué locality, where the material was collected, and the species epithet faundezi was chosen in recognition of Ramón Faúndez, manager of the Museo Municipal de Las Lajas, who supported the excavation project. Pilmatueia is the first recognized Valangininan dicraeosaurid and is the earliest recorded Cretaceous dicraeosaurid. It was part of a South American Upper Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous dicraeosaurid radiation.[1]

The fossils were recovered as early as 2009 in a layer of the Mulichinco Formation (Valanginian, Lower Cretaceous, Neuquén Basin, Argentina) and is based on isolated skeletal remains collected from a single stratigraphic level, relatively close to each other, with unquestionable dicraeosaurid features in the axial elements.

Pilmatueia faundezi is diagnosed by a unique combination of several features that include cervico-dorsal vertebrae with dorsoventrally oriented ridges on the anterior surfaces of the anterior centrodiapophyseal laminae, and posterior dorsal vertebrae with deep fossae at the bases of the bifid neural spines separated by a thick, low, sagittal lamina. Pilmatueia is recovered as the sister taxon of the late Early Cretaceous Amargasaurus cazaui.[1]