Saltasaurus (which means "lizar from Salta") is a genus of sauropod dinosaur of the Late Cretaceous Period. Relatively small among sauropods, though still massive by human standards, it was characterized by a diplodocid-like head (with blunt teeth, only in the back of the mouth) and was the first discovered with small bony plates embedded in its skin. The bony plates (a form of armour called osteoderms) have since been found in other titanosaurids, and a crest of scutes has also been discovered, running down the back of diplodocids. When the plates of a saltosaur were originally found, independently of skeletal remains, they were assumed to be from an ankylosaurian, whose plates they resemble.