Map

Andesaurious Delgadoi See map

The translation of the name of this creature is Lizard of the Andes and has the distinction of being a titanosaur (a branch within the family of herbivores) most primitive known so far.

The racking was done by the paleontologist Jorge Calvo and a resident named Alejandro Delgado in 1987.

The discovery of fossils of this giant become an event since it was the first of the great discoveries in the area of Comahue.

The Lizard of the Andes responds to the most popular image we have of dinosaurs, four legs, neck and tail very long and very small head. Of this animal were found the tail, part of the vertebrae of the back and part of the leg bones.

This animal, which measured about 15 meters long in adulthood, lived about 100 million years and shared habitat with the fabulous Giganotosaurus Carolini, whose remains were found in the same geological formation but six years after than the Andesaurious.

This animal fossils are on display in the museum of the National University of Comahue, where the artist Prebiterio Pacheco did different environments of was the habitat of the Cretaceous period.

In the region of Comahue were found many remains of different kinds of titanosaurs but none as primitive as the Lagarto de los Andes, whose fossils are among the largest in the Upper Cretaceous.

The estimated weight of the animal in life was 20 tons. One of the most salient anatomical features is that its previous caudal vertebrae had a slightly concave anterior face and a convex posterior face, while in the middle and posterior vertebraes had two flat faces. All these details in its structure are what defined its primitive character.