Padillasaurus

Padillasaurus is an extinct genus of titanosauriform sauropod known from the Early Cretaceous (Barremian stage) Paja Formation in Colombia. It contains a single species, Padillasaurus leivaensis, known only from a single partial axial skeleton. Initially described as a brachiosaurid, it was considered to be the first South American brachiosaurid ever discovered and named. Before its discovery, the only known brachiosaurid material on the continent was very fragmentary and from the Jurassic period. However, a more recent study finds it to be a basal somphospondylan.

==Discovery== The fossil was discovered by local farmers in a limestone nodule during the 1990s in Ricaurte, northeast of Villa de Leyva. The exact site of the find is unknown, however the rock matrix in which the fossil was located contains ammonite fossils bellowing to the species Gerhardtia galeatoides and Lytoceras sp., that allow the establishment of their origin in the middle Paja Formation which has been placed in the late Barremian, around 130 million years old. The fossil consists of vertebrae from the torso, sacrum and tail: all presumed to be from one individual. This specimen is the holotype assigned to the catalogue number JACVM 0001; this includes a rear dorsal vertebra, a series from the last two sacral vertebrae and first eight caudal vertebrae (these caudal vertebrae were found without their chevrons). The sacral vertebrae have been identified as the fourth and fifth. This fossil was donated by the farmers and became part of the collection at the museum of the Junta de Acción Comunal de la Vereda de Monquirá. Padillasaurus was originally described and named by José L. Carballido, Diego Pol, Mary L. Parra Ruge, Santiago Padilla Bernal, María E. Páramo-Fonseca y Fernando Etayo-Serna in 2015. The name of the genus pays homage to Carlos Bernardo Padilla, the founder of the Centro de Investigaciones Paleontológicas in Villa de Leyva, Colombia. The specific name, leivaensis, is named after Villa de Leyva, which is located nearby to where the vertebrae of the holotype specimen were discovered.