Scientists: We've Found Biggest Dinosaur Ever

Figure about 130 feet long and 85 tons
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted May 17, 2014 8:10 AM CDT
Scientists: We've Found Biggest Dinosaur Ever
The new dinosaur might have looked something like this. It's a type of sauropod similar to Argentinosaurus, which is the one illustrated here.   (Shutterstock)

Even by dinosaur standards, a new one unearthed in Argentina is big. In fact, the paleontologists who found it say it's the biggest ever found and thus the biggest creature ever to have walked the earth, reports the BBC. Let us count the ways: Based on its ginormous thigh bones, they estimate that it was 65 feet tall, 130 feet long, and weighed about 85 tons, reports the Telegraph. That would make it about 8 tons heavier than the previous No. 1, Argentinosaurus, though at least one expert cautions that a lot of guesswork goes into such claims.

"It's like two trucks with a trailer each, one in front of the other, and the weight of 14 elephants together," says the lead Argentinian paleontologist on the dig, as quoted in the Guardian. "This is a real paleontological treasure." The creature, which doesn't have a name yet, is thought to be a new species of titanosaur within the larger sauropod group. The herbivore roamed the Patagonia region of Argentina about 100 million years ago. A dinosaur expert at London's Natural History Museum notes that estimating size from bones is a tricky thing, and "ideally we'd need much more material of these supersized animals to determine just how big they really got." (Click to read about another newly found dinosaur dubbed "Pinocchio Rex.)

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