Atlasaurus Bone - 2.58" Polished Palm Stone with Stand
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Atlasaurus Bone - 2.58" Polished Palm Stone with Stand
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This specimen is a polished "palm stone" of Atlasaurus bone. It measures 2.58" in length and comes with a small acrylic stand, but they're really nice to hold as all edges are polished and they are a little thicker than our regular slabs. A small information card that also serves as a certificate of authenticity is also included.
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TEMPORAL RANGE: 167,700,000 to 164,700,000 years ago
MORE ABOUT ATLASAURUS
"The description of new genera and new species of dinosaurs discovered recently in North Africa completely changed the vision we had."
~ Philippe Taquet, Paleontologist and former President of the French Academy of Sciences, "The Dinosaurs of Maghreb: the History of their Discovery"
Discovered high in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco in 1999, Atlasaurus was a specialized sauropod genus from the mid-Jurassic. Estimated at about 50ft (15m) long and weighing 15 tons.
The position of Atlasaurus on the sauropod family tree hasn't been completely settled: Some have considered it a eusauropod, while others count it among the more primitive macronarians, one of the two main branches of the advanced sauropod (Neosauropoda) clade, along with diplidocoids. An earlier line of thinking pegged Atlasaurus as a close relative of the bigger, better-known Brachiosaurus, but more recent classifications place the genus among a hodgepodge group of basal titanosaurs, the macronarian line that, in the Cretaceous, produced the largest known sauropods also known as the somphospondyls.
Atlasaurus had an unusually short-necked, high-shouldered profile that represents a variation on sauropod adaptations for elevated foraging. The species claims the proportionately longest limbs of any sauropod known, likely compensating for the comparatively modest neck length to allow for mid to high-level treetop browsing. Atlasaurus's skull is also quite large and robust relative to its size.
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📸 Sauropod toothrows for comparison a) Camarasaurus b) Giraffatitan c) Diplodocid d) Juvenile diplodocid
Open Wide!
As Mark Hellett and Matthew J. Wedel explain in The Sauropod Dinosaurs: Life in the Age of Giants, Atlasaurus and other basal macronarians had midsize, spoon-shaped teeth. That "generalized cropping dentition," they note, in addition to these sauropods' long forelegs and heavy shoulders, might suggest "a medium-high specialization toward a finer, possibly more nutritious foliage that allowed for comparatively more selectivity per bite."
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Front of the Specimen Card
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Back of the Specimen Card
Further Reading
Allain, Ronan, et al. "A basal sauropod dinosaur from the Early Jurassic of Morocco." Comptes Rendus Palevol 3.3 (2004): 199-208.
Mannion, P. D. "Review and analysis of African sauropodomorph dinosaur diversity." Palaeontologia africana 44 (2009): 108-111.
Mudroch, Alexander, et al. "Didactyl tracks of paravian theropods (Maniraptora) from the Middle Jurassic of Africa." PLoS One 6.2 (2011): e14642.
Taquet, Philippe. "The dinosaurs of Maghreb: the history of their discovery." Historical Biology 22.1-3 (2010): 88-99.