Open Paleo

Moabosaurus

Britt et al., 2017 mo-AB-o-SOR-us

Named for Moab, Utah, the city near the Dalton Wells Quarry where the fossils were collected, combined with Greek 'sauros' meaning 'lizard'.

125.8–121.4 million years ago Barremian, Early Cretaceous
Early Cretaceous stages

Moabosaurus is a genus of turiasaurian sauropod dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous Cedar Mountain Formation of Utah, United States.

Under dispute

Moabosaurus was originally described as a basal titanosauriform (macronarian) neosauropod (Britt and colleagues, 2017), but most subsequent analyses recover it within Turiasauria, closely related to Mierasaurus (Royo-Torres and colleagues, 2017; Mannion and colleagues, 2019; Zhang and colleagues, 2026).

Diagnosis

  1. Anterior margin of conjoined frontals convex in dorsal view
  2. Postaxial cervical vertebrae with bifid spines characterized by shallow notch bounded by low metapophyses
  3. Neural spines of last cervical through anterior dorsal vertebrae low and laterally wide
  4. Bifid rib blades on mid to posterior cervical vertebrae
  5. First neural spine with cruciate cross-section on dorsal 4 or 5
  6. Procoelous proximal and distal caudal centra with variable middle caudal centra morphology

Species

Moabosaurus utahensis Britt et al., 2017

Type species

Named for Utah, the US state where the fossils were recovered near Moab.

Holotype
BYU 14387 , Earth Sciences Museum, Brigham Young University
Material
Three closely associated dorsal vertebrae, two articulated, one separated by 20 cm
Horizon
Yellow Cat Member, Cedar Mountain Formation, Barremian, Early Cretaceous , 125.8–121.4 million years ago
Locality
Dalton Wells Quarry, Utah, United States Britt and colleagues (2017) place the quarry at the base of the Yellow Cat Member, and Kinneer and colleagues (2016) and Royo-Torres and colleagues (2017) agree. Kirkland and colleagues (2016) read the fauna as "consistent with that of the upper part of the Yellow Cat Member", and note that at Dalton Wells the member is unusually thin, "the upper Yellow Cat… separated from the underlying Morrison Formation by a 'single' mudstone conglomerate bed".

References

  1. Britt, B. B.; Scheetz, R. D.; Whiting, M. F.; Wilhite, D. R. (2017). Moabosaurus utahensis, n. gen., n. sp., a new sauropod from the Early Cretaceous (Aptian) of North America. Contributions from the Museum of Paleontology, University of Michigan 32(11): 189-243. https://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/136227 britt2017a
  2. Jones, B. (2026). The Princeton Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs: Sauropods. Princeton University Press.

    Source of the mass and hip height estimates.

    jones2026b
  3. Mannion, P. D.; Upchurch, P.; Schwarz, D.; Wings, O. (2019). Taxonomic affinities of the putative titanosaurs from the Late Jurassic Tendaguru Formation of Tanzania: phylogenetic and biogeographic implications for eusauropod dinosaur evolution. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 185(3): 784-909. Oxford University Press (OUP). doi:10.1093/zoolinnean/zly068

    Assessed Moabosaurus's taxonomic affinities among putative Late Jurassic titanosaur-grade sauropods.

    mannion2019a
  4. Royo-Torres, R.; Upchurch, P.; Kirkland, J. I.; DeBlieux, D. D.; Foster, J. R.; Cobos, A.; Alcalá, L. (2017). Descendants of the Jurassic turiasaurs from Iberia found refuge in the Early Cretaceous of western USA. Scientific Reports 7(1). Springer Science and Business Media LLC. doi:10.1038/s41598-017-14677-2

    Recovered Moabosaurus within Turiasauria, closely related to the new turiasaur Mierasaurus

    royo-torres2017b
  5. Zhang, X. Q.; Wang, Y. M.; Wang, Z. J.; Wang, Y. C.; Wang, T.; Wang, G. F.; Zou, Y.; Dong, Q. X.; Su, X.; Jiang, H.; Wang, Y. J.; You, H. L. (2026). The first turiasaurian sauropod (Dinosauria: Eusauropoda) from East Asia. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 206(2): zlaf201. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/zoolinnean/zlaf201

    Recovered Moabosaurus within core Turiasauria in its turiasaurian phylogenetic analysis.

    zhang2026a
  6. Kinneer, B.; Carpenter, K.; Shaw, A. (2016). Redescription of Gastonia burgei (Dinosauria: Ankylosauria, Polacanthidae), and description of a new species. Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie - Abhandlungen 282(1): 37-80. Schweizerbart. doi:10.1127/njgpa/2016/0605 kinneer2016a
  7. Kirkland, J. I.; Suarez, M.; Suarez, C.; Hunt-Foster, R. (2016). The Lower Cretaceous in east-central Utah — the Cedar Mountain Formation and its bounding strata. Geology of the Intermountain West 3: 101-228. Utah Geological Association. doi:10.31711/giw.v3.pp101-228 kirkland2016a