Armoured Sauropods

Probably the most important feature of Saltasaurus, as mentioned previously, was the presence of osteoderms along the neck, back, and tail of this enormous sauropod. This was a fact that was not lost on the discoverers of the fossil or Jose Bonaparte who wrote the original description of the dinosaur (excluding von Heune's description of similar material that did not possess the osteoderms later discovered). Those osteoderms have been the center of attention concerning Saltasaurus for many years and, not entirely to the detriment of the entire animal, many studies of them have been conducted. In fact, histological studies have been conducted relatively recently that shed even more light on the dinosaur, the growth of the osteoderms, and their development in an animal where they are not typically expected to be found.