Dasosaurus tocantinensis: Brazil’s Giant Long-Necked “European Cousin” – 120-Million-Year-Old Link Discovered in Tocantins

In a discovery that bridges continents, paleontologists have named Dasosaurus tocantinensis — a colossal sauropod from Brazil whose closest relatives lived in Europe 120 million years ago, revealing unexpected faunal connections across the early Atlantic.

Described in Cretaceous Research (June 2026) by a team led by Dr. Aline Ghilardi of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, the partial skeleton was unearthed in the Aptian–Albian deposits of the Tocantins Basin in central Brazil. The holotype includes a mᴀssive femur over 1.9 metres long, cervical vertebrae, and shoulder girdle, indicating an animal roughly 24–26 metres long and weighing 25–30 tonnes — among the largest sauropods known from South America at that time.

What makes D. tocantinensis remarkable is its striking similarity to European тιтanosauriforms such as Europasaurus and Lusoтιтan. Shared features include the distinctive “hourglᴀss” shape of the cervical centra and the morphology of the scapula, suggesting a close phylogenetic relationship despite the vast geographic distance. This implies that тιтanosauriforms dispersed across the proto-Atlantic before full continental separation, or that a single widespread lineage existed earlier than previously thought.

The animal lived in a lush, seasonal floodplain alongside spinosaurids and early ornithopods. Its discovery fills a major gap in Brazilian sauropod diversity and proves that giant long-necked dinosaurs were already thriving in Gondwana while closely related forms dominated European archipelagos.

Ghilardi called the find “a dinosaur bridge across the Atlantic — proof that the early Cretaceous world was far more interconnected than we imagined.” Casts are now on display at the Museu de Paleontologia de Tocantins, where Dasosaurus stands as the latest giant to emerge from Brazil’s fossil-rich interior.