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Tapuiasaurus; Temporal range: Aptian; ~125 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
	Reconstructed skeleton, Museum of Zoology of the University of São Paulo
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Clade:	Dinosauria
Clade:	Saurischia
Clade:	†Sauropodomorpha
Clade:	†Sauropoda
Clade:	†Macronaria
Clade:	†Titanosauria
Genus:	†Tapuiasaurus; Zaher et al. 2011
Species:	†T. macedoi
Binomial name
	†Tapuiasaurus macedoi; Zaher et al. 2011

Tapuiasaurus (meaning "Tapuia lizard") is a genus of titanosaur which lived during the Lower Cretaceous period (Aptian age) in what is now Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Discovery

Its fossils, including a partial skeleton with a nearly complete skull, have been recovered from the Quiricó Formation of the São Francisco Basin in Minas Gerais, eastern Brazil. This genus was named a team of researchers led by Hussam Zaher, including Diego Pol, Alberto B. Carvalho, Paulo M. Nascimento, Claudio Riccomini, Peter Larson, Rubén Juárez Valieri, Ricardo Pires Domingues, Nelson Jorge da Silva Jr. and Diógenes de Almeida Campos, in a 2011 publication. The type species, Tapuiasaurus macedoi, was also described in this study.^[1]

Classification

Tapuiasaurus was originally classified as a member of the Nemegtosauridae family by its original describers, but subsequent cladistic analyses have revealed a more complex relationship. Wilson et al. (2016) found that Tapuiasaurus falls outside the Lithostrotia shade while Carballido et al. (2017) discovered a close relationship between Tapuiasaurus and the Gondwanan lithostrotians Isisaurus and Rapetosaurus, suggesting a distant connection to Nemegtosaurus.^[2]^[3]

References

^ Hussam Zaher; Diego Pol; Alberto B. Carvalho; Paulo M. Nascimento; Claudio Riccomini; Peter Larson; Rubén Juarez-Valieri; Ricardo Pires-Domingues; Nelson Jorge da Silva Jr.; Diógenes de Almeida Campos (2011). "A Complete Skull of an Early Cretaceous Sauropod and the Evolution of Advanced Titanosaurians". PLOS ONE. 6 (2): e16663. Bibcode:2011PLoSO...616663Z. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0016663. PMC 3034730. PMID 21326881.
^ Wilson, J. A., Pol, D., Carvalho, A. B. and Zaher, H. (2016), The skull of the titanosaur Tapuiasaurus macedoi (Dinosauria: Sauropoda), a basal titanosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of Brazil. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. doi:10.1111/zoj.12420
^ Carballido, J.L.; Pol, D.; Otero, A.; Cerda, I.A.; Salgado, L.; Garrido, A.C.; Ramezani, J.; Cúneo, N.R.; Krause, J.M. (2017). "A new giant titanosaur sheds light on body mass evolution among sauropod dinosaurs". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 284 (1860): 20171219. doi:10.1098/rspb.2017.1219.