Dreadnoughtus Was 'Astoundingly Huge'; Scientists Unearth Surprisingly Complete Skeleton of Supermassive Dinosaur
ByScientists have found a surprisingly complete skeleton of a new, supermassive dinosaur that measured about 26 meters and weighed more than 60 tons.
According to BBC News, the team of researchers discovered 70 percent of a dinosaur dubbed Dreadnoughtus schrani, meaning they will be able to accurately reconstruct it. What's more is this particular specimen was apparently still growing when it died.
Their study published in the journal Scientific Reports, the researchers estimated the fossils to be some 77 million years old and there is no way they can say for certain how big the Dreadnoughtus could have been.
"Dreadnoughtus schrani was astoundingly huge," excavation and analysis chief Dr. Kenneth Lacovara, an associate professor in Drexel University's College of Arts and Sciences, said in a press release. "It weighed as much as a dozen African elephants or more than seven T. rex. Shockingly, skeletal evidence shows that when this 65-ton specimen died, it was not yet full grown. It is by far the best example we have of any of the most giant creatures to ever walk the planet."
About as long as a Boeing 737 and heavier, there is no doubt in the researchers' minds that this new dinosaur could well be largest creature to ever walk the Earth and the astonishingly complete skeleton has given them the confidence to say so. Also discovered in Argentina was fellow titanosaur Argentinosaurus, which may have weighed up to 100 tons, but that observation was made with only a few vertebrae bones.
"It finally gives some better insights into how these animals were actually built," Dr. Paul Barrett, of London's Natural History Museum, told BBC News. "It gives us the opportunity to understand things like the limits of bone strength, in terms of how you can hold up an animal of such immense size.
"We can now start to think about modeling its breathing, its blood pressure and how much food it had to eat to get by. Once we know more about the overall proportions and shapes of these animals - and Dreadnoughtus is a big step in that direction - we can begin to unravel the secrets of titanosaur biology."