The gargantuan era of dinosaurs, when mammoth creatures wandered in the wilds of primordial Earth, was a period populated by many behemoth beasts, but few larger than animals called titanosaurs.
These Cretaceous-era ginormous monsters belonged to a diverse and dominant group of sauropod dinosaurs, which were defined by their XXL size, long neck and tail, and four-legged body structure.
Now, a team of South American paleontologists has unearthed the fossilized remains of a 98-million-year-old massive titanosaur in the province of Neuquén in northwestern Patagonia, Argentina, and may be the largest specimen of Earth dinosaur discovered. ever.
Led by researchers from the Zapala Museum, the La Plata Museum, the Egidio Feruglio Museum and the universities of Río Negro and Zaragoza, the fossilized remains were extracted from the site’s dense sedimentary deposits known as the Candeleros Formation.
As described in a new study published in the online journal Cretaceous Research, the 24 vertebrae of the fossil tail and parts of the excavated pelvic and pectoral girdle are thought to belong to a new titanosaur whose enormous size could eclipse that of mega-discovered relatives. earlier than Patagotitan.
This terrestrial giant, first cataloged in 2008 and found in the desert near La Flecha, lived 100 million to 95 million years ago and measured up to a colossal length of 122 feet.
Another huge titanosaur, unearthed in southwestern Argentina in 1987 and officially named Argentinosaurus, grew to 131 meters in length and tilted the scale to over 110 tons, about the weight of an adult blue whale. This latest Patagonian specimen could surpass the body mass statistics of that previous world record holder.
“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,” study co-author Alejandro Otero of the Museo de Argentina said. La Plata told CNN.
The remains of the titanosaurs are not downgraded in modern South America and the bones have been unearthed around the globe on all continents except Antarctica. By far the largest treasure of the largest of the beasts, those weighing over 40 tons, stumbled in the Patagonian region.
“In addition to the total size, the bones are articulated,” team member José Luis Carballido wrote in the museum’s official Facebook announcement. “Something I’ve never seen in dinosaurs of this size before. For now, we find the articulated vertebrae of the tail and hip bones. Phylogenetic analysis shows that it is a basal form of the Patagotitan lineage and is known as Lognkosauria, a group of South American titanosaurs. “
To establish a more accurate estimate of the ultimate size of this titanosaurus, scientists will continue to delve into its evolutionary mysteries, but preliminary data show that it is most likely larger than Patagotitan majorum and will likely eclipse its record as the largest. great terrestrial creature that ever walked the earth.
“The studied bones of this new sauropod are larger than those of the Patagotitan, however, due to the lack of femur and humerus, we cannot calculate body mass,” Carballido notes in the same official post. “So any comparison we make is inconclusive.”