Scientists believe these ridiculous bones could belong to the biggest dinosaur ever

Scientists have unearthed huge fossils 98 million years old in southwestern Argentina, they say, belonging to the largest dinosaur ever discovered.

The fossilized human-sized pieces of bone belonging to the giant sauropod appear to be 10-20% larger than those attributed to Patagotitan swimsuit, the largest dinosaur ever identified, according to a statement Wednesday from the CTYS scientific agency of the National University of La Matanza.

Sauropods were huge, long-necked, long-tailed herbivorous dinosaurs – the largest land creatures to ever live.

Among them, Patagotitan swimsuit, also from Argentina, weighed about 70 tons and was 40 meters (131 feet) long, about the length of four school buses.

(Jose Luis Carballido / CTyS-UNLaM / AFP)

Alejandro Otero of the Museo de La Plata in Argentina is working to reconstruct a likeness of the new dinosaur from two dozen vertebrae and pieces of pelvic bone discovered so far.

He published an article on the unidentified dinosaur for the scientific journal Cretaceous research, according to the university’s statement.

The search for more body parts, buried in the rock, continues. For scientists, the holy grail will be the large bones of the femur or humerus, which are useful in estimating the body mass of a long-extinct creature.

The massive fossils were discovered in 2012 in the Neuquen River Valley, but excavation work did not begin until 2015, according to paleontologist Jose Luis Carballido of Museo Egidio Feruglio.

(José Luis Carballido / CTyS-UNLaM / AFP)

“We have more than half of the tail, a lot of hip bones,” said Carballido, who also worked on the ranking of Patagotitan few years ago.

“He’s obviously still inside the boulder, so we’ve got a few more years to dig ahead of us.”

The massive skeleton was found in a layer of rock dating from 98 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous period, added geologist Alberto Garrido, director of the Zapala Natural Science Museum.

“We suspect that the specimen may be complete or nearly complete,” he said.

“It all depends on what happens with the dig. But it doesn’t matter if it’s bigger (than Patagotitan) or not, the discovery of an intact dinosaur of such dimensions is novel. ”

© Agence France-Presse