| Titanosaurus Temporal range: Late Cretaceous |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Sauropsida |
| Superorder: | Dinosauria |
| Order: | Saurischia |
| Suborder: | †Sauropodomorpha |
| Infraorder: | †Sauropoda |
| Family: | †Titanosauridae |
| Genus: | Titanosaurus Lydekker, 1877 |
| Species | |
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Titanosaurus (meaning 'titanic lizard' - named after the mythological 'Titans', deities of Ancient Greece) is a genus of sauropod dinosaur, first described by Lydekker in 1877.[1] It is known from the Maastrichtian (Upper Cretaceous) Lameta Formation of India. Species assigned to Titanosaurus are also known from southern Europe and South America.
Titanosaurus was 9-12 metres (30-40 ft) long and weighed about 13 tons. Titanosaurus has traditionally been treated as a "wastebin taxon" for poorly preserved sauropod remains that demonstrate a distinctive vertebrae anatomy. The original Titanosaurus remains consist only of limb bones and a few vertebrae that have these characteristics. However, discoveries of more and better-preserved titanosaur species have shown that these once distinctive features are in fact widespread across many genera. Therefore, Titanosaurus itself is considered a nomen dubium ("dubious name") by most paleontologists, since the original Titanosaurus specimens cannot be distinguished from those of related animals.
The most well-known species of Titanosaurus, "Titanosaurus" colberti, has been renamed Isisaurus.