Shortmegan Posted December 7, 2014 Share Posted December 7, 2014 (edited) I bought this piece today. The only information I have is that it was found near/in Majunga, Madagascar. It's about two meters long, and is in 27 pieces, I would love to know the species. I put my boot next to it to give a sense of scale - it's huge! Edited December 7, 2014 by Shortmegan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Troodon Posted December 7, 2014 Share Posted December 7, 2014 It appears what you have is a tail section of a theropod dinosaur. To determine species is difficult without the processes on the vertebra and exact locality. Also most dinosaur material from Madagascar is not fully described and only paleontologist familiar with your locality can shed light on your tail. One candidate is Majungasaurus crenatissimus because of the size of the vertebra. I've attached an image of those vertebra so you can have an example to compare to. The tail is beautiful and very rare, not a lot of this material has been found. Like the femur I would suggest briging this to a local museum so they can give you better information. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shortmegan Posted December 8, 2014 Author Share Posted December 8, 2014 Thank you, Troodon. Very helpful posts. Can you share the name of the reference book you scanned? Both images are quite useful and the book seems like something I could use. Can you believe I have no idea where to go to locate a paleontologist around here? Need to get cracking on that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fossilized6s Posted December 8, 2014 Share Posted December 8, 2014 Amazing piece! ~Charlie~ "There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why.....i dream of things that never were, and ask why not?" ~RFK ->Get your Mosasaur print ->How to spot a fake Trilobite ->How to identify a CONCRETION from a DINOSAUR EGG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ludwigia Posted December 8, 2014 Share Posted December 8, 2014 Now that's a great aquisition! Nice boot! Fits in with the floor. Greetings from the Lake of Constance. Roger http://www.steinkern.de/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Troodon Posted December 8, 2014 Share Posted December 8, 2014 Thank you, Troodon. Very helpful posts. Can you share the name of the reference book you scanned? Both images are quite useful and the book seems like something I could use. Can you believe I have no idea where to go to locate a paleontologist around here? Need to get cracking on that. Try going to a local museum and ask them for assistance. They may be able to point you in the right directions. There is not a lot of useful material available to the collector on dinosaurs from Madagascar and sorry no specific book that I'm aware of. I use the web to find technical papers on these topics. This image comes from Society of Vertebra Paleontology (SVP)journal publication (Memoir 8) on Majungasaurus that can be purchased from them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sander Posted December 8, 2014 Share Posted December 8, 2014 My guess is that this is also from a sauropod. looking at the way the vertebrae are preserved (and also the femur you have showed) the fossils seem to come not from the cretaceous of Madagascar, but from the Bathonian (Jurassic) Isalo IIIb formation. except for the color, the morphology of the vertebra point to a certain kind of sauropod that was not alive anymore during the cretaceous. but that would mean that the seller lied about it's provenance. actually seeing the preservation and the morphology I'm thinking that the seller indeed lies to you. I also have a few madagascar sauropod fossils, some were sold as being majungasaurus from cretaceous majunga, but after research and after a museum conservator looked at them we both came to the conclusion that the seller lied. I would suggest asking the seller again where they REALLY come from. my guess is somewhere in the Ambondromamy region. possible names are: Lapparentosaurus, Archaeodontosaurus, Bothriospondylus (name is probably not correct for Madagascar) or an unnamed other jurassic Sauropod. Greetings, Sander 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Troodon Posted December 8, 2014 Share Posted December 8, 2014 I originally thought sauropod but after I looked at the technical papers sauropods like Rapetosaurus had centrums with one side strongly convex and the other side being a ball. These look more like the image I attached of a theropod. Why Shortmegan needs to bring her purchases to a local museum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sander Posted December 8, 2014 Share Posted December 8, 2014 Yeah but that is because Rapetosaurus is a Titanosaur sauropod. these are (in my opinion) more Camarasaur/Brachiosaur like vertebrae, and also the looks of them suggest more of a Jurassic than a Cretaceous origin. or there would have been a Cam/Brach-like sauropod in the cretaceous from Madagascar, but up till now I know nothing of such an animal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sander Posted December 8, 2014 Share Posted December 8, 2014 Also I think that with mahajanga the province of Mahajanga is intended, not the environments of the city. and these jurassic layers occur in that province as well (just a little more inland as you can see on geological maps) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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