Gigantic fossil could belong to the greatest dinosaur of all time

Paleontologists have discovered the fossil remains of a “titanosaur” in Argentina, which they believe may be the largest dinosaur of all time. And while they’ve only discovered a few bones so far, there’s no doubt they’re from a monster. One that was probably over 120 feet from head to tail and weighed 220,000 pounds.

CNN reported on the new fossil, which paleontologists are unearthing in Argentina. Paleontologists have found the 94-million-year-old dinosaur fossil in thick sedimentary deposits and say they now have bones from its pelvis and parts of its skeleton that helped connect the giant’s legs to its body .

Nobu Tamura

“It’s a huge dinosaur, but we expect to find a lot more skeleton on future field trips, so we’ll have the opportunity to confidently determine how big it really was,” Alejandro Otero, paleontologist at the Museo de La d’Argentine Plata, told CNN. Otero and several colleagues published an article in the journal, Cretaceous research, describing dinosaur bones.

Otero et al. say that it is not yet known to what exact kind of Titanosauria this huge dinosaur belongs. They say, however, that it is probably larger or comparable to the Patagotitan or the Argentinosaurus. Patagotitan and Argentinosaurus are both genera belonging to Titanosauria; itself a diverse group of sauropod dinosaurs. (Sauropods were long-necked, quadrupedal herbivores that lived in the Jurassic and Cretaceous, and, incidentally, sneezed on Lex Murphy in jurassic park.)

Neloadino

Otero and his colleagues also say that this dinosaur helps illustrate how the titanosaurs hung out. Which means this giant sauropod is proof that the smaller titanosaurs spent time with the larger ones. And that these differences in size could explain the existence of a diversity of sauropods in the Late Cretaceous.

In the future, the goal is to assemble as many dinosaur bones as possible. And find out its genus and species. Undoubtedly difficult tasks, but if completed they can make people rethink how the Earth shook when the dinosaurs erected it.