Rapetosaurus

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Rapetosaurus

ZooTek Phoenix

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Author: Moondawg

Keywords: extinct animals, dinosaurs

Date Released: Jan 29 2009

Current RapetosaurusMD_2009.ztd dated 25 January 2009

File Size: 8.33mb

Compatibility: DD and CC

Description: Rapetosaurus is a genus of sauropod dinosaur that lived in Madagascar from 70 to 65 million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous Period. Only one species (R. krausei) has been identified.
Like other sauropods, Rapetosaurus was a quadrupedal herbivore; it is calculated to have reached lengths of 15 metres.

Rapetosaurus was a fairly typical sauropod, with a short and slender tail, a very long neck and a huge, elephant-like body. Its head resembles the head of a diplodocid, with a long, narrow snout and nostrils on the top of its skull. It was an herbivore and its small, pencil-like teeth were good for ripping the leaves off trees but not for chewing.

It was fairly modest in size, for a titanosaur. The juvenile specimen measured 8 metres (26 ft) from head to tail, and "probably weighed about as much as an elephant", according to Kristina Curry Rogers. An adult would have been about twice as long (15 meters (49 ft) in length) which is still less than half the length of its gigantic kin, like Argentinosaurus and Paralititan.

During the early part of the Late Cretaceous all groups of sauropods, with the exception of the titanosaurs had gone extinct. The titanosaurs were the dominant herbivores of the Late Cretaceous on the southern continents. Their reign was cut short by the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event, which killed almost all the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago.

The discovery of Rapetosaurus, known by the single species Rapetosaurus krausei (pronounced rah-PAY-too-SORE-us KROW-sie and meaning 'Krause's mischievous giant lizard') marked the first time a titanosaur had been recovered with an almost perfectly intact skeleton, complete with skull. It has helped to clarify some difficult, century-old classification issues, among this large group of sauropod dinosaurs and provides a good baseline for the reconstruction of other titanosaurs that are known only from partial fossilized remains.

The discovery was published in 2001 by Kristina Curry Rogers and Catherine A. Forster in the scientific journal Nature. The nearly-complete skeleton is that of a juvenile and partial remains from three other individuals were also recovered.

The titanosaurs are the largest group of sauropods but are poorly represented in the fossil record. Other groups of sauropods, even small families like the brachiosaurids, are known from more complete remains. Until the discovery of Rapetosaurus, the 30 or so genera were represented by just a few bones, a partial skeleton or a skull. The first titanosaur, discovered in 1887, is still only known from a partial skeleton.

This has made it difficult to determine not just the relationship between different genera of titanosaur but even how the titanosaurs are related to other, higher-level groups like the macronarians (the group of "big nostril" sauropods, which include the titanosaurs, the nemegosaurids and the brachiosaurids). The whole taxon has been used as a dumping ground, with many genera labeled as incertae sedis (belonging to an unknown group), because not enough is known about them to classify them any further.

The Diplodocus-like skull has demonstrated that titanosaur skulls vary more than was previously believed. Most paleontologists believed that titanosaurs had box-like skulls with the nostrils midway up the snout, like the Camarasaurus, but Rapetosaurus has a long, low skull, with the nostrils on the top, similar to Diplodocus. This has allowed genera known only by Diplodocus-like skulls (like Quaesitosaurus and Nemegtosaurus and other nemegtosaurids) to be classified as macronarians rather than in Diplodocoidea.

Analysis of the rest of the skull and the body has also confirmed what was only previous speculated: that titanosaurs are most closely related to the brachiosaurids. "The discovery of this dinosaur is particularly exciting because it confirms a close relationship between the titanosaurs and brachiosaurs, something that could only be surmised previously," according to Rich Lane, of the National Science Foundation.

A complete skeleton can also serve as a baseline when reconstructing other titanosaurs from limited remains. This is the basis for new, revised estimates of the size of the super-giant titanosaurs.

The new species, Rapetosaurus krausei, was described in the August 2, 2001 issue of the scientific journal Nature, by Kristina Curry Rogers (then a graduate student under Catherine Forster and now employed by Macalester College, in St. Paul, Minnesota) and Catherine A. Forster, an Associate Professor at the Department of Anatomical Sciences of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, in Stony Brook, New York.

The Rapetosaurus is a member of the Nemegtosauridae family, which is within the unranked Titanosauria taxon.

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Additional info:

RapetosaurusMD_2009.ztd                                     uca: 150F53F2 dated 25 January 2009

Results From Configuration Checking:

150f53f2.uca date: Sun Jan 25 13:01:10 2009
No Errors or Warnings to show.
Animal Type: 150F53F2

Rapetosaurus

Only one species (R. krausei) has been identified.
    (plus 28 other paragraphs)

Animal Characteristics:

Habitat: Deciduous Forest; Location: Africa; Era: Cretaceous
Minimum happiness needed for chance of breeding: 97.
Animal can jump.
Animal can climb cliffs.
Cannot be used in original Zoo Tycoon: cKeeperFoodType (8) is not 0 to 5.

Exhibit Preferences:

Foliage:
Wild Olive Tree, Elm Tree, Pacific Dogwood Tree, Cherry Tree, Maple Tree
Thornless Mesquite Tree, Birch Tree, Trembling Aspen Tree, Globe Willow Tree
Japanese Maple Tree, Deciduous Bush, Weeping Willow Tree, White Oak Tree
Broadleaf Bush, Gingko Tree (DD), Glossopteris Tree (DD), Magnolia Tree (DD)
Monkey Puzzle Tree (DD), Bonsai (CC), Snowbell Tree (CC)

Rocks:
Large Rock, Large Rock - 1, Large Rock - 2, Large Rock - 3, Large Rock - 4
Small Rock - Medium, Small Rock - Small, Small Rock - 7, Small Rock - 8
Small Rock - 9, Deciduous Forest Rock - Formation

Exhibit Construction:

Number of animals allowed per exhibit: 1-3 with 80 squares for each adult.

Exhibit size (for 2 adults): 160 grid squares

Terrain (for exhibit with 160 grid squares):
112 Deciduous Floor, 13 Dirt, 11 Fresh Water, 24 Grass

Foliage (for exhibit with 160 grid squares):
10 grid squares should contain foliage.
Foliage that would give the most happiness: Magnolia Tree (DD)
Since this is a small plant, greatest happiness will occur
if each of the 10 grid squares contains 4 of this plant.

Rocks (for exhibit with 160 grid squares):
13 Small Rock - Small, which is its most liked rock.

Elevation: Of the 160 squares, 2 nonadjacent squares should be elevated.