MUSEO MUNICIPAL ARGENTINO URQUIZA (RINCÓN DE LOS SAUCES, NEUQUÉN): A CORNER FULL OF SAURIANS

Abstract

Paleontology in Northern Patagonia and the Museo Municipal “Argentino Urquiza” (Rincón de los Sauces, Neuquén) began practically together with the discovery of a specimen of a titanosaur sauropod dinosaur, considered one of the most complete ever found. This important event revealed the great paleontological potential of the area, attracting the attention of several paleoherpetologists who began to carry out fieldwork in search of new specimens. The successive findings subsequently made by the community residents in the town vicinity revealed the need to have a repository to protect the hundreds of jackets that were being recovered year after year in different fieldworks. The creation of a paleontological museum and the incorporation, some years later, of a permanent professional, were the relevant facts that allowed carrying out different projects and lines of research, which still continue today. The multidisciplinary development of research carried out with the support of paleoherpetologists from other national and international institutions favored the recovery of a diverse fauna of paleovertebrates from the Upper Cretaceous, allowing studies with systematic, evolutionary, paleoecological, sedimentological, paleobiogeographic, and taphonomic approaches, among others. The recently opened new museum building offers the possibility to grow not only in its infrastructure but also in an institutional aspect, making it a thriving research paleontological center of Patagonia.