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Punatitan

Say it: POO-nah-tie-tan

Name means: “puna giant”1

Ate: PlantsLong-necksLate Cretaceous

Punatitan was a huge, long-necked plant-eater that lived in what is now Argentina. It stomped through the forests of the Late Cretaceous, munching on leaves with its tiny head. This dinosaur was about as long as a bus and shared its home with lots of other titanosaurs.1 2

Lived

84 to 66 million years ago3

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Quebrada de Santo Domingo, La Rioja, Argentina1 3

Food

Plants3

Length

14 m1

estimate

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

as long as 3 cars parked in a rowas long as 78 bananas end to end

How big was Punatitan compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Punatitan's name comes from the 'puna', the high, oxygen-poor air of the Andes where its fossils were found.1

The species name 'coughlini' honors geologist Tim Coughlin, who first reported dinosaur fossils in the area.1

Punatitan is known from a partial skeleton including neck bones, back bones, a hip bone, and 13 tail bones that were still connected.1

At the same site where Punatitan was found, scientists discovered one of the largest dinosaur nesting grounds ever, with eggs in three layers spread over 3 kilometres.2

Punatitan belonged to a group of titanosaurs called Aeolosaurini, which includes relatives from both Argentina and Brazil.1

This dinosaur lived about 83 to 66 million years ago, during the Campanian and Maastrichtian ages of the Late Cretaceous.3

AI-made picture of Punatitan — An AI-made picture of how Punatitan 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: Punatitan
Named by: Hechenleitner et al. 20203
Group: Long-necks
Family / clade: Rinconsauria3
Classification: Sauropodomorpha > Sauropoda > Titanosauria > Macronaria3
Age of the rocks: 84 to 66 million years (Campanian / Maastrichtian)3
Rock formations: Ciénaga del Río Huaco3
Countries: Argentina3
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Punatitan was named in 2020 by Hechenleitner and colleagues, based on a partial skeleton found in the Ciénaga del Río Huaco Formation of Argentina.1 3
Still debated: Scientists are not sure exactly how Punatitan is related to other titanosaurs, because different studies place it in different branches of the family tree.1

Where the facts come from

Punatitan (en.wikipedia.org)
Two Late Cretaceous sauropods reveal titanosaurian dispersal across South America - PMC (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
Punatitan in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

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