Dino card No. 1755 of 2,027

Tastavinsaurus

Say it: tas-tah-VIN-sore-us

Name means: “Tastavins lizard”1

Ate: PlantsLong-necksEarly Cretaceous

Tastavinsaurus was a huge, long-necked plant-eater that stomped through what is now Spain about 125 million years ago. It had a very long tail and walked on four thick legs like a giant cow.1

Lived

121 to 120 million years ago4

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Teruel province, Spain1

Food

Plants2

Length

16 m1

Weight

8 tonnes1

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

as long as 4 cars parked in a rowas long as 89 bananas end to endas heavy as 5 carsas heavy as 1.5 elephantsas heavy as 1600 watermelons

How big was Tastavinsaurus compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Tastavinsaurus had a shin bone that was only about half as long as its thigh bone, which is unusual for sauropods.1

Its name honors the Rio Tastavins river in Spain and paleontologist José Luis Sanz.1

Scientists put Tastavinsaurus in a group called Laurasiformes, which includes other sauropods from North America and Europe.3

The first Tastavinsaurus skeleton was found in 1996 and 1997 in Peñarroya de Tastavins, Spain.3

A second, more complete skeleton was dug up in 2004 at a site called La Canaleta in El Castellar, Spain.3

Tastavinsaurus lived in a shallow coastal environment, like a warm, muddy beach.3

AI-made picture of Tastavinsaurus — An AI-made picture of how Tastavinsaurus 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.

you asked

Most asked questions about Tastavinsaurus

?How big was Tastavinsaurus?

About 16 metres (52 feet) long and weighed around 8 tonnes. That is roughly as long as a big bus and as heavy as a large elephant.1

?What did Tastavinsaurus eat?

It was a plant-eater. It ate plants like ferns and leaves, using its long neck to reach high into trees.1

?When did Tastavinsaurus live?

It lived about 125 million years ago, during the Early Cretaceous Period.1

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Tastavinsaurus
Named by: Canudo et al. 20084
Group: Long-necks
Family / clade: Somphospondyli4
Classification: Sauropodomorpha > Sauropoda > Macronaria4
Age of the rocks: 121 to 120 million years (Aptian)4
Rock formations: Xert, Forcall4
Countries: Spain4
Fossil records: 2 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: Tastavinsaurus was named in 2008 by paleontologists Canudo, Royo-Torres, and Cuenca-Bescós based on a partial skeleton found in Spain.1
Still debated: Scientists are not sure whether Tastavinsaurus was a somphospondylan or a brachiosaurid, two different groups of sauropods.1

Where the facts come from

Tastavinsaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
A new specimen of the Cretaceous sauropod Tastavinsaurus sanzi from El Castellar (Teruel, Spain), and a phylogenetic analysis of the Laurasiformes (sciencedirect.com)
Tastavinsaurus 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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