| "Brachiosaurus" nougaredi Temporal range: Early Cretaceous, 112–96 Ma |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Superorder: | Dinosauria |
| Order: | Saurischia |
| Suborder: | †Sauropodomorpha |
| Infraorder: | †Sauropoda |
| Family: | †Brachiosauridae |
| Genus: | †Brachiosaurus (invalid referral) de Lapparent, 1960 |
| Species | |
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Brachiosaurus nougaredi is a giant sauropod dinosaur from the family Brachiosauridae. It was originally assigned to the genus Brachiosaurus in 1960, though it almost certainly represents a different genus.
This species is known from fragmentary remains discovered in eastern Algeria, in the Sahara Desert. The present type material consists of a sacrum and some of the left metacarpals and phalanges. Found at the discovery site but not collected were partial bones of the left forearm, wrist bones, a right shin bone, and fragments that may have come from metatarsals.[1] Albert-Félix de Lapparent, who described and named the material in 1960, reported the discovery locality as being in the Late Jurassic–age Taouratine Series (he assigned the rocks this age in part because of the presumed presence of Brachiosaurus),[1] but more recent review assigns it to the "Continental intercalaire," which is considered to be of Albian age (late Early Cretaceous, significantly younger).[2]
This material was found disjointed over an area of several hundred meters,[1] and may not belong to one individual or even one species. Upchurch, Barrett and Dodson (2004) doubted its assignment to Brachiosaurus, and listed it as an unnamed brachiosaurid.[3] The sacrum is of very large size, with a length of 130 centimetres (51 in) for four vertebrae compared to 95 centimetres (37 in) for five vertebrae in B. altithorax - the full "B." nougaredi sacrum with all five vertebrae could have been as long as 145 cm, a gigantic size even by brachiosaur standards; the other bones attributed to this species are not of unusual size in comparison to B. altithorax or Giraffatitan brancai[1] and may be from various species unrelated to the giant sacrum.