''Algoasaurus'' (; "

Algoa Bay Algoa Bay is a maritime bay in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. It is located in the east coast, east of the Cape of Good Hope. Algoa Bay is bounded in the west by Cape Recife and in the east by Cape Padrone. The bay is up to deep. The harbour ...

reptile") is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial n ...

sauropod Sauropoda (), whose members are known as sauropods (; from '' sauro-'' + '' -pod'', 'lizard-footed'), is a clade of saurischian ('lizard-hipped') dinosaurs. Sauropods had very long necks, long tails, small heads (relative to the rest of their ...

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

from the

Berriasian In the geological timescale, the Berriasian is an age/ stage of the Early/Lower Cretaceous. It is the oldest subdivision in the entire Cretaceous. It has been taken to span the time between 145.0 ± 4.0 Ma and 139.8 ± 3.0 Ma (million years a ...

- early Valanginian-age

Early Cretaceous The Early Cretaceous (geochronological name) or the Lower Cretaceous ( chronostratigraphic name), is the earlier or lower of the two major divisions of the Cretaceous. It is usually considered to stretch from 145 Ma to 100.5 Ma. Geology Pr ...

Upper Kirkwood Formation of

Cape Province The Province of the Cape of Good Hope ( af, Provinsie Kaap die Goeie Hoop), commonly referred to as the Cape Province ( af, Kaapprovinsie) and colloquially as The Cape ( af, Die Kaap), was a province in the Union of South Africa and subsequen ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring count ...

, specifically near a town called Despatch.

Discovery and naming

The holotype, a cervical

vertebra The spinal column, a defining synapomorphy shared by nearly all vertebrates, Hagfish are believed to have secondarily lost their spinal column is a moderately flexible series of vertebrae (singular vertebra), each constituting a characterist ...

femur The femur (; ), or thigh bone, is the proximal bone of the hindlimb in tetrapod vertebrates. The head of the femur articulates with the acetabulum in the pelvic bone forming the hip joint, while the distal part of the femur articulates wit ...

, an ungual phalanx and a

scapula The scapula (plural scapulae or scapulas), also known as the shoulder blade, is the bone that connects the humerus (upper arm bone) with the clavicle (collar bone). Like their connected bones, the scapulae are paired, with each scapula on eithe ...

, was recovered in 1903 from a

quarry A quarry is a type of open-pit mining, open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock (geology), rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some juri ...

Despatch, Eastern Cape Despatch is a small town in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa situated between Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage with an estimated population of 40 000. It forms part of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality which includes Port Eli ...

which exposed part of the Upper Kirkwood Formation by workmen who did not recognize them as dinosaur specimens, so many of the bones, probably including the rest of the once near-complete

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of seve ...

, were made into bricks and thus destroyed;Broom, R. (1904)
On the occurrence of an opisthocoelian dinosaur (''Algoasaurus Bauri'') in the Cretaceous beds of South Africa.
''Geological Magazine'', decade 5, 1(483):445-447. it is possible that bricks in the

Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality ( af, Nelson Mandelabaai Metropolitaanse Munisipaliteit; xh, uMasipala wase Nelson Mandela Bay or ''uMasipala waseBhayi'') is one of eight metropolitan municipalities (also called Category A municipalities) in So ...

may still contain parts of the ''Algoasaurus'' holotype. According to Broom (1904), the

Port Elizabeth Museum A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as ...

collected "a few fragments of vertebrae and ribs" and another attempt to collect any remaining bones at the site was also made. The

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen( ...

, ''A. bauri'', was named by

Robert Broom Robert Broom FRS FRSE (30 November 1866 6 April 1951) was a British- South African doctor and palaeontologist. He qualified as a medical practitioner in 1895 and received his DSc in 1905 from the University of Glasgow. From 1903 to 1910, ...

in 1904 and he likened ''Algoasaurus'' to ''

Brontosaurus ''Brontosaurus'' (; meaning "thunder lizard" from Greek , "thunder" and , "lizard") is a genus of gigantic quadruped sauropod dinosaurs. Although the type species, ''B. excelsus'', had long been considered a species of the closely related ''A ...

'' and ''

Diplodocus ''Diplodocus'' (, , or ) was a genus of diplodocid sauropod dinosaurs, whose fossils were first discovered in 1877 by S. W. Williston. The generic name, coined by Othniel Charles Marsh in 1878, is a neo-Latin term derived from Greek διπ� ...

''. Broom gave much of his fossil collection to the American Museum of Natural History in 1913, including the ungual phalanx from the holotype, listed as specimen AMNH FR 5631.Broom, R. (1915). Catalogue of types and figured specimens of fossil vertebrates in the American Museum of Natural History. II.–Permian, Triassic and Jurassic reptiles of South Africa. ''Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History'' 25(2):105–164. Canudo & Salgado (2003) and Ibiricu ''et al.'' (2012) both considered ''Algoasaurus'' to have belonged to

Rebbachisauridae Rebbachisauridae is a family of sauropod dinosaurs known from fragmentary fossil remains from the Cretaceous of South America, Africa, North America, Europe and possibly Central Asia. Taxonomy In 1990 sauropod specialist Jack McIntosh included ...

based on the shape of the

neural arch The spinal column, a defining synapomorphy shared by nearly all vertebrates, Hagfish are believed to have secondarily lost their spinal column is a moderately flexible series of vertebrae (singular vertebra), each constituting a characteristic ...

of the cervical vertebra,Canudo, J. I., and L. Salgado. (2003). Los dinosaurios del Neocomiense (Cretácico Inferior) de la Península Ibérica y Gondwana occidental: implicaciones biogeograficas. Pages 251–268 in F. Pérez-Lorente, editor. ''Dinosaurios y Otros Reptiles Mesozoicos de España. Instituto de Estudios Riojanos, Logroño, Spain''.Ibiricu, L. M., G. A. Casal, M. C. Lamanna, R. D. Martínez, J. D. Harris, and K. J. Lacovara. 2012. The southernmost records of Rebbachisauridae (Sauropoda: Diplodocoidea), from early Late Cretaceous deposits in central Patagonia. ''Cretaceous Research'' 34:220–232. but MacPhee ''et al.'' (2016) disagreed with the rebbachisaurid affinities of ''Algoasaurus'', stating that, although the shape of the vertebra suggests ''Algoasaurus'' belonged to Rebbachisauridae, the shape of the scapula says otherwise, so they could not identify ''Algoasaurus'' further than

Eusauropoda Eusauropoda (meaning "true sauropods") is a derived clade of sauropod dinosaurs. Eusauropods represent the node-based group that includes all descendant sauropods starting with the basal eusauropods of ''Shunosaurus'', and possibly ''Barapasaurus ...

and they also could not locate the rest of the holotype, although they did find specimen SAM-PK-K1500 in the collections of the Iziko Museum in

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second larges ...

to possibly be the lost caudal vertebra pertaining to the holotype or possibly another specimen of ''Algoasaurus'' unrelated to the holotype, but SAM-PK-K1500 is yet to be described in detail, so it can not yet be confidently assigned to any genus.

Description

The animal may have been around 9 m (30 ft) long when it died, although this can not be confirmed as the holotype is very fragmentary. Before it was lost, the femur was estimated to have been up to when complete.

Classification

''Algoasaurus'' was a

eusauropod Eusauropoda (meaning "true sauropods") is a derived clade of sauropod dinosaurs. Eusauropods represent the node-based group that includes all descendant sauropods starting with the basal eusauropods of '' Shunosaurus'', and possibly '' Barapasaur ...

; although it has often been assigned to the

Titanosauridae Lithostrotia is a clade of derived titanosaur sauropods that lived during the Early Cretaceous and Late Cretaceous. The group was defined by Upchurch ''et al.'' in 2004 as the most recent common ancestor of '' Malawisaurus'' and '' Saltasaurus ...

,Steel, R. (1970). Saurischia. ''Handbuch der Paläoherpetologie/Encyclopedia of Paleoherpetology.'' Part 14. Gustav Fischer Verlag:Stuttgart p. 1-87. there is no evidence for this, and recent reviews have considered it to be an

indeterminate Indeterminate may refer to: In mathematics * Indeterminate (variable), a symbol that is treated as a variable * Indeterminate system, a system of simultaneous equations that has more than one solution * Indeterminate equation, an equation that ha ...

sauropod. It was then believed to have been a member of

until it was reclassified in 2016 as an indeterminate

Paleoenvironment

Sedimentological analysis of the holotype assemblage suggests it came from a horizon transitioning into a drier climate. Other animals from the Kirkwood Formation include the iguanodontian '' Iyuku'', the stegosaur ''

Paranthodon ''Paranthodon'' ( ) is a genus of stegosaurian dinosaur that lived in what is now South Africa during the Early Cretaceous, between 139 and 131 million years ago. Discovered in 1845, it was one of the first stegosaurians found. Its only rem ...

'', the ornithomimosaur '' Nqwebasaurus'', and several other unnamed dinosaurs.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2361699 Neosauropoda Early Cretaceous dinosaurs of Africa Berriasian life Valanginian life Cretaceous South Africa Fossils of South Africa Fossil taxa described in 1904 Taxa named by Robert Broom Controversial dinosaur taxa