RE: re-introduction of Titanosaurs to North America?

[Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com>]

David Krentz wrote:

> Thanks for the info. From what i understand, there has been no
> armour associated with Alamosaurus. 

That's my understanding too.

> Saltasaurs (patagonia) had armour and Opisthocoelicaudia (asian) did not ; at 
> least according to
> my refs. 

Yes, I believe that's true.  _Saltasaurus_ had armor, but no armor was found 
associated with the skeleton of _Opisthocoelicaudia_.  Given that the the 
skeleton of _Opisthocoelicaudia_ is nearly complete (except for head and neck), 
it's a good indication that the absence of armor from this titanosaur is real 
(i.e., not a taphonomic artifact).

> Could that play a part in the origin of Late Cretaceous Titanosaurs?

The presence of armor may correlate inversely with size.  No quantifiable study 
has been done on this, so this will sound very hand-wavey, but body armor tends 
to turns up in many of the smaller titanosaurs (such as _Saltasaurus_ and some 
of its close relatives_), but not the really big ones.  Of course, this is 
complicated by the fact that many titanosaurs are so incompletely known that 
the absence of armor might be an artifact.

Cheers

Tim
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