the Maevarano Formation. The rock formation has been dated to the Maastrichtian stage of the late Cretaceous, which means the fossilized bones are about 70 million years old. They were found by a field team from Stony Brook University with the assistance of the local Universite d'Antananarivo. The team leader, David Krause, had been excavating fossils from the site since 1993. The generic name Rapetosaurus is derived from Rapeto (a giant deity in Malagasy folklore credited for the geographical features of the land) and sauros, which is Greek for lizard. The species epithet, krausei, is named after the team leader of the expedition, David W. Krause. Paleobiology Growth A rare specimen of a juvenile Rapetosaurus was uncovered in a museum collection by Kristina Curry Rogers and colleagues. The specimen was estimated to weigh about 40 kilograms (88 pounds) and was likely between 39 and 77 days old by the time of its death. At the time of its hatching, the juvenile Rapetosaurus was estimated to be 3.4 kilograms (7.8 pounds) in weight. Based on bone remodeling, the juvenile sauropod was also believed to have been capable of surviving with little to no parental care. Analysis of the bones further revealed the young Rapetosaurus likely starved to death due to Cretaceous Madagascar's harsh droughts. Paleoecology During the Maastrichtian, like it is now, Madagascar was an island, having separated from the Indian subcontinent less than 20 million years earlier. It was drifting northwards but still 10–15° more southerly in latitude than it is today. The prevailing climate of the time was semi-arid, with pronounced seasonality in temperature and rainfall. Many prehistoric animals inhabited a coastal flood plain cut by many sandy river channels. Strong geological evidence suggests the occurrence of periodic debris flows through these channels at the beginning of the wet season, burying the carcasses of organisms killed during the preceding dry season and providing for their exceptional preservation as fossils. Sea levels in the area were rising throughout the Maastrichtian, and would continue to do so into the Paleocene Epoch, so Rapetosaurus may have roamed coastal environments like tidal flats as well. The neighboring Berivotra Formation represents the contemporaneous marine environment. Besides Rapetosaurus, fossil taxa recovered from the Maevarano include fish, frogs, lizards, snakes, seven distinct species of crocodylomorphs, five or six species of mammals, Vorona and several other birds, the possibly flighted dromaeosaurid Rahonavis, the noasaurid Masiakasaurus, and the