Erketu Temporal range: Late Cretaceous,
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Skeletal reconstruction of the holotype | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Clade: | Dinosauria |
Clade: | Saurischia |
Clade: | †Sauropodomorpha |
Clade: | †Sauropoda |
Clade: | †Macronaria |
Clade: | †Titanosauriformes |
Clade: | †Somphospondyli |
Genus: | †Erketu Ksepka & Norell 2006 |
Type species | |
†Erketu ellisoni Ksepka & Norell 2006
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Erketu (meaning "Erketü Tengri") is a genus of somphospondylan sauropod dinosaur that lived in Asia during the Late Cretaceous roughly between 96 million and 89 million years ago. Its fossils were found in Mongolia between 2002 and 2003 during a field expedition and first described in 2006; later on in 2010 due to some cervicals that were left behind in the expedition. Erketu represents one of the first sauropods described from the Bayan Shireh Formation. The elongated cervical vertebrae of Erketu indicates that it was the sauropod with the longest neck relative to its body size.