Scientists have unearthed massive fossils, 98 million years old, in southwestern Argentina, saying they belonged to the largest dinosaur ever discovered.
The human-sized pieces of fossilized bone belonging to the giant sauropod appear to be 10-20 percent larger than those assigned Patagotitan swimsuit, the largest dinosaur ever identified, according to a statement Wednesday by the CTYS scientific agency at the National University of La Matanza.
Sauropods were huge, long-necked, long-tailed, plant-eating dinosaurs — the largest terrestrial creatures to ever live.
Among them, Patagotitan swimsuitalso from Argentina, weighed about 70 tons and was 40 meters long (about 131 feet) or about the length of four school buses.
(Jose Luis Carballido / CTyS-UNLaM / AFP)
Alejandro Otero from the Museo de La Plata in Argentina is working on a resemblance to the new dinosaur from two dozen vertebrae and pieces of pelvic bone discovered so far.
He published a paper on the unidentified dinosaur for the scientific journal Cretaceous research, according to the university statement.
The search for several parts of the body, buried deep in the rock, continues. For scientists, the holy grail will be large bones of the femur or humerus, which are useful in estimating the body mass of a long-lost creature.
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 the Museo Egidio Feruglio.
(Jose 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 classification. Patagotitan a few years ago.
“Obviously it’s still inside the rock, so we have a few more years of digging ahead of us.”
The massive skeleton was found in a layer of rock dated about 98 million years ago during the Upper Cretaceous, added geologist Alberto Garrido, director of the Museum of Natural Sciences in Zapala.
“We suspect the specimen may be complete or almost complete,” he said.
“It all depends on what happens to the excavations. But whether it’s bigger (than Patagotitan) or not, the discovery of an intact dinosaur of such size is a novelty. ”
© Agence France-Presse