Tapuiasaurus

Tapuiasaurus is a genus of titanosaur which lived during the Lower Cretaceous period in what is now Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Discovery

Its fossils, including a partial skeleton with a nearly complete skull, have been recovered from the Quiricó Formation of the São Francisco Basin in Minas Gerais, eastern Brazil. This genus was named a team of researchers led by Hussam Zaher, including Diego Pol, Alberto B. Carvalho, Paulo M. Nascimento aka Pirula , Claudio Riccomini, Peter Larson, Rubén Juárez Valieri, Ricardo Pires Domingues, Nelson Jorge da Silva Jr. and Diógenes de Almeida Campos, in a 2011 publication. The type species, Tapuiasaurus macedoi, was also described in this study.

Classification

Tapuiasaurus was originally classified as a member of the Nemegtosauridae family by its original describers, but subsequent cladistic analyses have revealed a more complex relationship. Wilson et al. found that Tapuiasaurus falls outside the Lithostrotia shade while Carballido et al. discovered a close relationship between Tapuiasaurus and the Gondwanan lithostrotians Isisaurus and Rapetosaurus, suggesting a distant connection to Nemegtosaurus.