Volkheimeria

Volkheimeria (meaning "of Volkheimer") was an eusauropod[1] sauropod dinosaur. It lived during the Middle Jurassic, approximately 160 million years ago. Fossils of Volkheimeria have been found in the Cañadón Asfalto Formation of the Cañadón Asfalto Basin in Patagonia, Argentina. The type (and only known) species, V. chubutensis, was described by José Bonaparte in 1979. Volkheimeria is known from some incomplete postcrania, including a mostly complete pelvis and sacrum, caudal vertebrae and a femur and tibia.[2] Many features of this scant material can distinguish Volkheimeria especially in the pelvic and vertebral regions, such as the very low flat neural spines.[3]

Volkheimeria
Temporal range: Middle Jurassic
~160 Ma
↓
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Dinosauria
Clade: Saurischia
Suborder: †Sauropodomorpha
Clade: †Sauropoda
Clade: †Eusauropoda
Genus: †Volkheimeria
Bonaparte, 1979
Species:
†V. chubutensis
Binomial name
†Volkheimeria chubutensis
Bonaparte, 1979

Discovery and naming

Volkheimeria was first described in 1979 by Jose Bonaparte. In the paper, Bonaparte also named its type species, V. chubutensis. It was also shown to be a relative of Lapparentosaurus by Bonaparte due to similarities in the neural laminae. Originally identified as a possible cetiosaur along with Patagosaurus and then identified as a brachiosaur for a time, Volkheimeria is now considered a eusauropod along with Patagosaurus and Lapparentosaurus, with Volkheimeria and Lapparentosaurus relatively primitive eusauropods compared to the more derived Patagosaurus. The only known specimen of Volkheimeria is from the Callovian to Oxfordian aged Patagonian deposits that also preserved Patagosaurus and Piatnitzkysaurus, both named in the same publication as Volkheimeria.[3]

References
  1. Leonardo Salgado; Rodolfo A. Coria (2005). "Sauropods of Patagonia: systematic update and notes on global sauropod evolution". In Virginia Tidwell; Kenneth Carpenter (eds.). Thunder-Lizards: The Sauropodomorph Dinosaurs. Indiana University Press. p. 495. ISBN 9780253345424.
  2. Weishampel, David P.; Dodson, Peter; Osmòlska, Halszka (17 December 2007). The Dinosauria. University of California Press. p. 383. ISBN 978-0520254084.
  3. Bonaparte, J.F. (1979). "Dinosaurs: A Jurassic Assemblage from Patagonia". Science. 205 (4413): 1377–1379. Bibcode:1979Sci...205.1377B. doi:10.1126/science.205.4413.1377. JSTOR 1748887. PMID 17732331. S2CID 34854458.


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