Isisaurus

A colored line drawing of the extinct sauropod dinosaur Isisaurus. It has a relatively short chunky neck for a sauropod, held at an upward angle similar to a giraffe, with a small head. its forelegs are fairly long and slender, its hindlegs are thicker, its back slopes downwards and is pebbled with rows of bony osteoderms, and it has a long tapering flexible tail. it's depicted with yellow, orange and dark brown stripes and blotchy coloration.

Isisaurus colberti was a sauropod dinosaur that lived in what is now India and Pakistan at the end of the Cretaceous Period, about 70-66 million years ago.

It was part of the titanosaur group of sauropods and had some unusual proportions* compared to its close relatives, with elongated forelimbs and a relatively short chunky neck. Since it’s only known from a partial skeleton its full size is unknown – estimates have been made as large as 18m long (~60′) but it was probably somewhat smaller, closer to around 11m in length (36′).

(*Measurement errors in the original paper resulted in some very weird proportions, but more recent and rigorous reconstructions have made Isisaurus not quite so cursed-looking.)

Like most other titanosaurs it probably lacked the thumb claws seen in other sauropods, and it may also have had some bony osteoderm armor studding its skin.

Coprolites that may represent Isisaurus’ poop show evidence of several different fungi that grow on tree leaves in humid tropical and subtropical climates, suggesting that this sauropod was a selective browser somewhat like modern giraffes.

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