Algoasaurus bauri ("Algoa Sea Reptile") is the only known species of the dubious extinct genus Algoasaurus of titanosaurian sauropod dinosaurs that lived in the late Jurassic and early Cretaceous period between the Tithonian and Berriasian, between approximately 150 and 145 million years ago. years in what is today Africa. Its fossils have been found in South Africa, more precisely in the Kirkwood Formation. It was a neosauropod, and although it has frequently been assigned to the Titanosauridae, there is no evidence of this, and recent revisions have considered it an indeterminate sauropod.
The type species, A. bauri was named by paleontologist Robert Broom in 1904, from a dorsal vertebra, femur, and ungual phalanx. The fossils were recovered in 1903 by quarry workers who did not recognize them as such and many were turned into bricks and thus destroyed. The animal may have been around 9 meters in length in life.
JPInstitute.com Description[]
Algoasaurus was a small African member of the long-necked sauropod family. Discovered in a rock quarry in 1903, the workman didn't realize the importance of the find and they destroyed the fossils and used most of them to make bricks! The few bones that were saved showed that this dinosaur might be related to Apatosaurus or maybe the huge Argentinosaurus.
Algoasaurus has never officially been described. Its location in South Africa suggests that it may be related to the titanosaurs, but bone similarities seem to place it closer to the diplodocids.
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