Paleontologists have discovered the fossilized remains of a 98 million-year-old titanosaur in the province of Neuquén, in northwestern Patagonia, Argentina, in thick sedimentary deposits, known as the Candeleros Formation.
The 24 vertebrae of the tail and the elements of the pelvic and pectoral girdle are considered to belong to a titanosaur, a diverse group of sauropod dinosaurs, characterized by their large size, long neck and tail and four-legged position.
“It’s a huge dinosaur, but we expect to find much more of the skeleton in future trips, so we’ll be able to confidently approach how big it was,” said Alejandro Otero, a paleontologist at Museo de La in Argentina Plata. told CNN by email.
Titanosaur fossils have been found on all continents except Antarctica. But the largest “multi-ton” varieties of the species – including those titanosaurs exceeding 40 tons – have been discovered mostly in Patagonia.
Without analyzing the humerus or femur of the dinosaur, experts say it is not yet possible to say how much the creature weighs. However, the partially recovered dinosaur “can be considered one of the largest titanosaurs,” experts said, with a probable body mass that exceeds or is comparable to that of a Patagotitan or Argentinosaurus.
The Patagonians could have been the largest terrestrial animal in the world of all time and weighed up to 77 tons, while Argentinosaurus were similarly gargantuan and measured up to 40 meters and weighed up to 110 tons – weighing over 12 times more than an African elephant (up to 9 tons).
Experts believe the specimen strongly suggests the coexistence of larger titanosaurs with medium-sized titanosaurs and small rebbachisaurids in the early to late Cretaceous period, which began 101 million years ago.
“These differences in size could really explain the existence of such a diversity of sauropods in the Neuquén basin during the late Cretaceous in terms of the niche partition,” they wrote.
The researchers said that although they do not believe that the creature belongs to a new species, so far they have not been able to attribute it to a known genus of dinosaur.
The research was conducted by the Zapala Museum in Argentina, the La Plata Museum, the Egidio Feruglio Museum and the universities of Río Negro and Zaragoza.