The Largest Creature Ever to Walk the Earth...New Discovery

The "largest creature ever to walk the Earth" has been discovered in Argentina.

 

This gigantic dinosaur stood 40m long and 20m tall, based on the length of its enormous thigh bones.

Weighing in at 77 tons, it was as heavy as 14 African elephants, and seven tons heavier than the previous record holder, Argentinosaurus.

 The new dinosaur is a type of sauropod similar to Argentinosaurus, illustrated here

 

Scientists believe it is a new species of titanosaur, enormous herbivores that lived during the Late Cretaceous, the last days of the dinosaurs. A local farm worker first stumbled on the remains in the desert near La Flecha, about 250km west of Trelew, Patagonia.
The fossils were then excavated by a team of palaeontologists from the Museum of Palaeontology Egidio Feruglio, led by Dr Jose Luis Carballido and Dr Diego Pol. They unearthed the partial skeletons of seven individuals - about 150 bones in total - all in "remarkable condition".

 

By measuring the length and circumference of the largest femur (thigh bone), they calculated the animal weighed 77 tons.

"Given the size of these bones, which surpass any of the previously known giant animals, the new dinosaur is the largest animal known that walked on Earth," the researchers said.
"Its length, from its head to the tip of its tail, was 40meters (131.23 feet).
"Standing with its neck up, it was about 20m high - equal to a seven-storey building." It weighs in at about 77 to 80 tons.

This giant herbivore lived in the forests of Patagonia between 95 and 100 million years ago, based on the age of the rocks in which its bones were found. But despite its magnitude, it does not yet have a name.
"It will be named describing its magnificence and in honour to both the region and the farm owners who alerted us about the discovery," the researchers said.

There have been many previous contenders for the title "world's biggest dinosaur". The most recent pretender to the throne was Argentinosaurus, a similar type of sauropod, also discovered in Patagonia.  Argentinosaurus'  weight was estimated from only a few bones. But the researchers here had dozens to work with, making them more confident that they really have found "the big one".
Dr Paul Barrett, a dinosaur expert from London's Natural History Museum, agreed the new species is "a genuinely huge critter".  One problem with assessing the weight of both Argentinosaurus and this new discovery is that,  no complete skeleton is known, which means the animal's proportions and overall shape are conjectural. But they figure they can calculate fairly close to the animal's size and weight.
These supersized dinosaurs have created a lot of excitement in the palaeontology community, whose holy grail would be to find a complete skeleton.


The video below is about Argentinosaurus...who is no longer the largest animal ever to walk the earth