Scientists have discovered large, 98-million-year-old fossils in southwestern Argentina that are said to belong to the largest dinosaur ever discovered.
Human fragments of fossil bone belonging to the giant sauropod appear to be 10-20 percent larger than those donated Patagotitan Mayorum, the largest dinosaur ever identified, according to a statement Wednesday from the scientific group CTYS of La Matanza National University.
Souropods were long-necked, long-tailed dinosaurs that ate plants – the largest terrestrial creatures ever.
These include Patagotitan Mayorum, also from Argentina, weighed about 70 tons and was 40 meters (131 feet) long, or about four school buses.
(Jose Luis Carballido / CTyS-UNLaM / AFP)
Alejandro Otero of Museo de La Plata of Argentina is working on assembling the appearance of the new dinosaur from two dozen vertebrae and fragments of pelvic bone found so far.
He has published a paper on the unknown dinosaur for the scientific journal Cretaceous Research, according to the university statement.
The question of more body parts, buried deep in a rock, continues. For scientists, the sacred splendor becomes the bones of a large femur or humerus, which is helpful in estimating the mass of a long-extinct creature.
The large fossils were discovered in 2012 in the Neuquen River Valley, but excavation work began only in 2015, according to palaeontologist Jose Luis Carballido of the Museo Egidio Feruglio.
(Jose Luis Carballido / CTyS-UNLaM / AFP)
“We have more than half the tail, a lot of hip bones,” said Carballido, who was also working on classification. Patagotitan a few years ago.
“Obviously it’s still inside the rock, so we have a few more years digging ahead of us.”
The giant skeleton was found in a series of rocks dated about 98 million years ago in the Upper Cretaceous period, added geologist Alberto Garrido, director of the Zapala Museum of Natural Sciences.
“We suspect the sample may be complete or almost complete,” he said.
“It all depends on what happens with the excavation Patagotitan) or not, the discovery of an incomplete dinosaur of these dimensions is a novelty. ”
© Agence France-Presse