Dinosaur discovered in Argentina could be largest ever found
Scientists have unearthed massive, 98-million-year-old fossils in Argentina they say may have belonged to the largest dinosaur ever discovered.
Human-sized pieces of fossilised bone belonging to the giant sauropod appear to be 10-20 per cent larger than those attributed to Patagotitan mayorum, the biggest dinosaur ever identified, according to a statement Wednesday from the National University of La Matanza’s CTYS scientific agency.
Sauropods were enormous long-necked, long-tailed, plant-eating dinosaurs — the largest terrestrial creatures to ever have lived.
Dinosaur found in Argentina may be largest yet, the 98 million-year-old fossils discovered in southwest Argentina are of a sauropod, which may be larger than the Patagotitan mayorum, the largest dinosaur ever identifiedpic.twitter.com/dcUl65Tq1u
— Alfons López Tena (@alfonslopeztena) January 21, 2021
Among them, Patagotitan mayorum, also from Argentina, weighed in at about 70 tonnes and was 40 metres long, or about the length of four school buses.
They can’t yet speculate as to whether the gigantic bones belong to a known species or something new entirely, but, per CNN, the team says that the specimen could be even bigger than a 122-foot, nearly 70-ton titanosaur called Patagontitan.
Dinosaur fossils found in Argentina could be of the largest animal ever lived on Earth
ThePrint’s Sandhya Ramesh @sandygrains reportshttps://t.co/6fKkHBHQls
— Shekhar Gupta (@ShekharGupta) January 20, 2021
Researchers have dated the new specimen to around 98 million years ago, reports Harry Baker for Live Science.
“Given the measurements of the new skeleton, it looks likely that this is a contender for one of the largest, if not the largest, sauropods that have ever been found,” Paul Barrett, a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London who was not involved in the study, tells Live Science. “This new skeleton provides yet another example of sauropods pushing at the extremes of what’s possible with respect to maximum animal size on land.”
Dinosaur Fossil From Argentina Could Belong To Largest Terrestrial Animal Known To Science https://t.co/hSc4vvEoMA
— Jennifer Ouellette (@JenLucPiquant) January 19, 2021
To reach a conclusion regarding the behemoth’s species and more accurately estimate its size, researchers will need to keep digging. David Bressan reports for Forbes that load bearing bones such as the femur and humerus would go a long way towards facilitating such estimates.
“It is a huge dinosaur, but we expect to find much more of the skeleton in future field trips, so we’ll have the possibility to address with confidence how really big it was,” Alejandro Otero, a paleontologist with Argentina’s Museo de La Plata and lead author of the paper, tells CNN via email.
As Bressan notes in Forbes, though dinosaurs like the titanosaurs reached lengths well more than 100 feet, they fail to mount a serious challenge for the title of the largest animal ever to have lived on our planet. That accolade goes to a giant that is still with us today: the blue whale, which can reach lengths of more than 100 feet and, because its heft is supported by water, weigh up to 173 tons.
