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Stem-Bird Files: Fortaleza Dreadnaught

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Description


Time: Late Campanian (75 million years ago)
Length: Up to 26 meters (85.4ft) based on the immature holotype specimen.
Height: Up to 5.8 meters (18.8ft) at the shoulder, based on the immature holotype.
Weight: Up to 37 tonnes for the holotype; fully grown mass unknown.
Habitat: The Cerro Fortaleza formation of Santa Cruz Province, Argentina.
Ecology: Large terrestrial megaherbivore. Dreadnoughtus has an extremely long neck compared to other titanosaurs of similar mass, being nearly as long as that of the much larger Puertasaurus. This neck was likely used to browse at heights of 12-13 meters off the ground.
Diet: Treetop foliage, mostly originating from large conifers and gingkoes. Juveniles, too small to reach the treetops, would've eaten lower foliage like tree ferns, cycads, and possibly horsetails.
Potential predators: Hatchlings were probably preyed upon by unelangiine dromaeosaurids and juveniles by abelisaurs similar to Abelisaurus or megaraptorans similar to Orkoraptor; no large carnosaurs are known from the area, but either way a fully grown adult would have been practically immune to predation.
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Update 07/19/17: 
-Lineart completely remade.
-Replaced human scale figure.
-More accurate size estimate, now along the centra as is the norm, instead of in a straight line.
-Minor text corrections. (PS: yes the phylogeny disappeared, not sure what happened there)

Skeletal reconstruction from the description paper.

Image size
2452x1532px 199.01 KB
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NestieBot's avatar
Can i please color it?