Lirainosaurus

Lirainosaurus Temporal range: Late Cretaceous
Paratype braincase
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Sauropsida
Superorder:	Dinosauria
Order:	Saurischia
Suborder:	Sauropodomorpha
Infraorder:	Sauropoda
(unranked):	Titanosauria Lithostrotia
Family:	Saltasauridae
Subfamily:	Opisthocoelicaudiinae
Genus:	Lirainosaurus
Species:	L. astibae
Binomial name
Lirainosaurus astibae Sanz et al., 1999

Lirainosaurus is a genus of titanosaur sauropod which lived in what is now Spain. The type species, Lirainosaurus astibiae, was described by Sanz, Powell, Le Loeuff, Martinez, and Pereda-Suberbiola in 1999.^[1]

Systematics

This genus was based on a skull fragment, isolated teeth, several vertebrae including the holotype - an anterior caudal vertebra, and appendicular bones from the Late Cretaceous of Laño (northern Spain). New material from Laño, Spain described by Diaz et al. (2013), which includes cervical, dorsal and caudal vertebrae, dorsal ribs, and a haemal arch, has been assigned to Lirainosaurus.^[2] According to Diaz et al., Lirainosaurus can be distinguished by the presence of a lamina in the interzygapophyseal fossa of the most proximal caudal vertebrae; and the spinopostzygapophyseal structure not posteriorly projected in the posterior caudal vertebrae. With respect to phylogeny, the combination of characters present in the new axial remains described, supports the placement of Lirainosaurus as a derived lithostrotian titanosaur]] closely related to the Saltasaurinae. The results of an unpublished SVPCA abstract published in 2016 narrow down the exact position of Lirainosaurus by placing it as closer to Alamosaurus and Opisthocoelicauda than to Saltasaurus.^[3]

References