Opisthocoelicaudia skarzynskii is a genus of sauropod dinosaur of the Late Cretaceous Period discovered in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia. A well-preserved skeleton lacking only the head and neck was unearthed in 1965 by Polish and Mongolian scientists. Tooth marks on this skeleton indicate that large carnivorous dinosaurs had fed on the carcass and possibly had carried away the now-missing parts. To date, only two additional, much less complete specimens are known.
About Opisthocoelicaudia in brief
Opisthocoelicaudia skarzynskii is a genus of sauropod dinosaur of the Late Cretaceous Period discovered in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia. A well-preserved skeleton lacking only the head and neck was unearthed in 1965 by Polish and Mongolian scientists. Tooth marks on this skeleton indicate that large carnivorous dinosaurs had fed on the carcass and possibly had carried away the now-missing parts. To date, only two additional, much less complete specimens are known, including part of a shoulder and a fragmentary tail. It measured about 11. 4–13 m in length and would have been characterised by a small head sitting on a very long neck and a barrel shaped trunk carried by four column-like legs. It is the only known sauropods from the Nemegt Formation, the youngest of the three geological formations of the NemEGt Basin. Its exact relationships within Titanosauria are contentious, but it may have been close to the North American Alamosaurus. It was first thought to be a new member of the Camarasauridae, but is currently considered a derived member of. the Titanosauroidea. The type specimen was discovered between 10 and 23 June 1965, during a joint Polish-Mongolian paleontological expedition led by Polish paleontologist Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska. It remains by far the most complete finding of this dinosaur and is the most unusual as it was found lying on its back in contrast to most other dinosaur skeletons of the most unusual fossils found on its sides.
Since the skull of the type specimen remains unknown, several researchers have suggested that NemegTosaurus and Opisth CocoelicAudia may represent the same species. Sauropod footprints, which include skin impressions, can probably be referred to either Nemeg tosaurus or OpistHocoelacaudia as these are the onlyknown sauroPods from this formation. The fossils were found in the Altan Uul area, which exposes some 100 km2 of badlands in southern Mongolia. The sediments exposed at AltanUul belong to the Nem Egt Formation. Despite being rich in dinosaur fossils, the only other sauro pod from this rock unit is known from a single skull. The other finds, made at different localities, include several skeletons of a tyrannosaurid Tarbosaurus as well as the giant ornithomimosaur Deinocheirus, the saurpod Nemeg Taurus, and the pachycephalosaur Homalocephale. The skeleton was found in very hard sandstone layers, several layers of which are usually found on their sides lying on their back. The specimen belonged to an individual aged between 11 and 13 years old. Its taphonomy is as unusual as that of the other dinosaur discoveries made by the 1965 expedition. It can be found on the website of the National Museum of Nature and Science in Warsaw, Poland.
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