| Saltasaurids Temporal range: Late Cretaceous,
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| Restoration of Saltasaurus | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Clade: | Dinosauria |
| Clade: | Saurischia |
| Clade: | †Sauropodomorpha |
| Clade: | †Sauropoda |
| Clade: | †Macronaria |
| Clade: | †Titanosauria |
| Clade: | †Lohuecosauria |
| Family: | †Saltasauridae Powell, 1992 |
| Genera | |
| Synonyms | |
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Saltasauridae (named after the Salta region of Argentina where they were first found) is a family of armored herbivorous sauropods from the Upper Cretaceous. They are known from fossils found in South America, Africa,[4] Asia, North America, and Europe. They are characterized by their vertebrae and feet, which are similar to those of Saltasaurus, the first of the group to be discovered and the source of the name. The last and largest of the group and only one found in North America, Alamosaurus, was thirty-four metres (112 feet) in length and one of the last sauropods to go extinct.
Most of the saltasaurids were smaller, around fifteen metres (49 feet) in length, and one, Rocasaurus, was only eight metres (26 feet) long. Like all sauropods, the saltasaurids were quadrupeds, their necks and tails were held almost parallel to the ground, and their small heads had only tiny, peg-like teeth. They were herbivorous, stripping leaves off of plants and digesting them in their enormous guts.[5] Although large animals, they were smaller than other sauropods of their time, and many possessed distinctive additional defenses in the form of scutes along their backs.
- ^ a b Averianov, A.O.; Sues, H.D. (2017). "Review of Cretaceous sauropod dinosaurs from Central Asia". Cretaceous Research. 69: 184–197. Bibcode:2017CrRes..69..184A. doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2016.09.006.
- ^ Mo, J.; Wang, K.; Chen, S.; Wang, P.; Xu, X. (2017). "A new titanosaurian sauropod from the Late Cretaceous strata of Shandong Province". Geological Bulletin of China. 36 (9): 1501–1505.
- ^ M. S. Malkani. (2003). Discovery of partial skull and dentary of Titanosauria (sauropod dinosaur) from the Late Cretaceous Pab Formation of Vitakri area, Barkhan District, Balochistan, Pakistan. Geological Bulletin, University of Peshawar 36:65-71
- ^ Wahba, Dalia Gamal Ahmed; Abu El-Kheir, Gebely Abdelmaksoud; Tantawy, Abdel Aziz; AbdelGawad, Mohamed (2023-09-04). "A new record of saltasaurids in Africa; new evidence from the Middle Campanian, Western Desert, Egypt". Historical Biology: 1–5. doi:10.1080/08912963.2023.2252445. ISSN 0891-2963.
- ^ Fastovsky, David; Weishampel, David; Sibbick, John (2009). Dinosaurs: a concise natural history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pg. 162-184.