Dino card No. 1414 of 2,027

Petrobrasaurus

Say it: peh-troh-brah-SORE-us

Name means: “Petrobras lizard, named after the Petrobras oil company”1

Ate: PlantsLong-necksLate Cretaceous

Petrobrasaurus was a huge, long-necked plant-eater that lived in what is now Patagonia, Argentina. It was a titanosaur, a group of the biggest dinosaurs ever to walk the Earth.2 3

Lived

90 to 84 million years ago4

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Rincón de los Sauces, Neuquén Province, Patagonia, Argentina2 1

Food

Plants3 1

Length

10 m3

estimated from partial skeleton

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

as long as 2 cars parked in a rowas long as 56 bananas end to end

How big was Petrobrasaurus compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Petrobrasaurus is known from a partial skeleton that includes teeth, vertebrae, ribs, leg bones, and even sternal plates.1

Its name honors the Petrobras oil company, which helped preserve fossils in the area.1

This dinosaur lived about 89 to 83 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous period.3

Its teeth were cylindrical and pencil-like, perfect for a plant-eating diet.1

The fossils were found near an oil well called PH 1597, in the Puesto Hernández oil field.1

AI-made picture of Petrobrasaurus — An AI-made picture of how Petrobrasaurus might have looked, made by a computer from what scientists know. It is a guess: the real animal may have looked different, and nobody knows its true colours.

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Petrobrasaurus
Named by: Filippi et al. 20114
Group: Long-necks
Family / clade: Titanosauria4
Classification: Sauropodomorpha > Sauropoda > Titanosauria > Macronaria4
Age of the rocks: 90 to 84 million years (Coniacian / Santonian)4
Rock formations: Plottier4
Countries: Argentina4
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: Petrobrasaurus was named in 2011 by Leonardo Filippi and colleagues, based on a partial skeleton found in the Plottier Formation of Argentina.2 3
Still debated: Scientists are not sure exactly which group of titanosaurs Petrobrasaurus belongs to; some think it might be related to Lognkosauria, but it is still considered Titanosauria incertae sedis (uncertain placement).1

Where the facts come from

A new sauropod titanosaur from the Plottier Formation (Upper Cretaceous) of Patagonia (Argentina) (revistes.ub.edu)
Petrobrasaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Petrobrasaurus in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

Every fact on this page has a number that points to its source. If we got something wrong, sorry, we are dino fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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