Named By: Ismar de Souza Carvalho, Leonardo dos Santos Avilla & Leonardo Salgado - 2003.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia, Dinosauria, Saurischia, Sauropodomorpha, Sauropoda, Diplodocoidea, Rebbachisauridae.
Species: A. maranhensis (type).
Size: Estimated up to 12 meters long, but lack of remains make it impossible to be certain.
Known locations: Brazil, Legal Amazon - Itapecuru Formation.
Time period: Aptian to Albian of the Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: Partial post cranial remains including dorsal (back) and caudal (tail) vertebrae, ribs and a fragmentary pelvis.
certainly not the only dinosaur to be discovered in Brazil,
Amazonsaurus was still the first discovered within
the Amazon Basin.
Amazonsaurus is confirmed as a diplodocoid
but the lack of
fossil remains makes it difficult to tell what kind. One possibility
is that Amazonsaurus might be a rebbachisaurid, a
sub group of the
Diplodocoidea whose members are known from the early Cretaceous with
some actually living in South America.
Study of the areas that the Amazonsaurus holotype was recovered from indicates that back in the early Cretaceous it was a floodplain associated with a river delta. Assuming that the Amazonsaurus remains were not washed down there from a location upstream, this would see Amazonsaurus roaming in low lying; relatively open ground while feeding upon low growing vegetation.
- Amazonsaurus maranhensis gen. et sp. nov. (Sauropoda, Diplodocoidea) from the Lower Cretaceous (Aptian–Albian) of Brazil, Ismar de Souza Carvalho, Leonardo dos Santos Avilla & Leonardo Salgado - 2003.
- Lower Cretaceous rebbachisaurid sauropods from Cerro Aguada del León (Lohan Cura Formation), Neuquén Province, northwestern Patagonia, Argentina. - L. Salgado, A. Garrido, S. E. Cocca & J. R. Cocca - 2004.