New Dinosaur fossils discovered in Argentina could be the 'largest animal to roam Earth'

Scientists have yet again unearthed another mystery. This time, it's a 98-million-year-old fossil in Southwest Argentina. Experts believe that the remains discovered could be of the largest animal to walk on Earth. 

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Who are Titanosaurs?

Credits: Natural History Museum

Back in 2012, the remains of a similar species were discovered in the Neuquén Province of northwest Patagonia. The remains haven't fully been excavated yet but are reported to have been that of a titanosaur. Titanosaurs are among the largest sauropods, if not the largest, to have lived from the Jurassic period (163.5 million to 145 million years ago) to the Cretaceous period (145 million to 66 million years ago). These dinosaurs are described to have been long and thin necked with a long whiplike tail and a four-legged stance. A recent study also found that these giants were in fact herbivores. Titanosaur fossils have been found everywhere except Antarctica, and the largest ones have mostly been discovered in Patagonia alone. Patagonia region, located at the Southernmost tip of South America, has been known to be home to such walking giants.

Right now, the researchers can't say much on how large the newly discovered dinosaur actually was since they've only discovered 24 vertebrae, which are a part of its tail, and some parts of the pelvic and pectoral girdle as of now. The excavation of the other parts of the dinosaur will reportedly take years to dig up. Experts say that without analysing the dinosaur's humerus or femur, one cannot possibly calculate how much it weighs. This specimen is supposed to have exceeded the size of the Patagotitan, a species of dinosaur that is roughly 50 feet tall and weighs 62 metric tons, and Argentinosaurus that is measured to be 40 meters tall and weighs up to 110 tons, which is 12 times larger than an African elephant.

Credit - Alejandro Otero and José Luis Carballido

Alejandro Otero, the lead study author and a palaeontologist at La Plata Museum, said to CNN, "It is a huge dinosaur, but we expect to find much more of the skeleton in future field trips, so we'll have the possibility to address with confidence how big it really was."

Consequently, Paul Barrett, a paleobiologist at the Natural History Museum, told Live Science, "This new skeleton provides yet another example of sauropods pushing at the extremes of what's possible with respect to maximum animal size on land."

These new and consistent discoveries only prove that the co-existence of such vast and diverse sizes of dinosaurs could be dated back to the beginning of the Late Cretaceous period that began 101 million years ago.

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