Meghalaya may soon shed more light on the distribution and diversity of Titanosaurus, the first Indian dinosaur as geologists recently discovered sauropods of probable origin from Titanosauraus, from the West Khasi Hills district in the northern state. is.

If scientifically proven, Meghalaya could become the fifth Indian state after Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu to report Sauropod bones having an affinity with the Titanosaurian.

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A team from the Paleontology Division of the Geological Survey of India (Northeast Region) discovered the vertebrate fossil bone fragments from the lower part of the Mahadek Formation of Maastrichtian age from the villages of Mawphuli and Dirang near Ranikor in the southwestern district of Khasi Hills.

Bone fragments were collected from very coarse grained, poorly sorted, purplish to greenish arkosic sandstone interspersed with cobble beds of the Mahadek Formation.

The GSI said Thursday that more than 25 disarticulated bone specimens, most of them fragmentary, had been recovered during the investigation. “They are different in size and occur as isolated specimens, but some of them have been found in close proximity to each other. Only three of the best preserved could be studied. The largest is a partially limb bone. preserved 55 cm long, “It said.

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The GSI stated that the titanosaurian sauropod dinosaurs were the most diverse and abundant large land herbivores in the southern hemisphere landmasses during the Cretaceous Period, but were not endemic to landmasses. of Gondwanan.

“In India, the Late Cretaceous sauropod dinosaur generally belongs to the Titanosaur clade and has been reported in the Lameta Formation of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra and the Kallamedu Formation of Tamil Nadu,” he said.

Arindam Roy, senior geologist, division of paleontology, said dinosaur bones from Meghalaya were reported by the GSI in 2002, but were too fragmentary and poorly preserved to understand its taxonomic identification.

“The abundance of bones recovered during the present work and in particular the discovery of some bones of limbs and vertebrae with taxonomic characters of the form clade Titanosauri is unique. The record of the assembly of sauropods of the titanosaurian affinity Meghalaya’s probable extends the distribution and diversity of vertebrates in the Late Cretaceous of India, ”Roy said.