Paleontologists in Patagonia, southern Argentina on Friday announced they have unearthed a 90-million-year-old fossil of what they claim is the largest dinosaur found to date.
“It’s the largest example ever found,” said Ruben Cuneo, director of the Feruglio Museum of Trelew, a city founded by Welsh settlers in the 1860s.
The new kind of dinosaur dwarfs even the Argentinosaurus, the previous largest contender. It is a 40-metre (130-foot) long sauropod discovered in farmland about 260km (160 miles) from the town of Trelew.
The dinosaur weighed about 80 tons, the equivalent of 14 grown elephants, said the museum director. A complete skeleton was found in a field discovered by a farm worker last year, where up to seven such complete skeletons are believed to exist, in the locality of El Sombrero.
“It’s like two trucks with a trailer each, one in front of the other, and the weight of 14 elephants together,” said José Luis Carballido, the Argentinian paleontologist who led the dig. “This is a real paleontological treasure. There are plenty of remains and many were nearly intact, which is unusual.”
Note : The above story is based on materials provided by Uki Goni in Buenos Aires for theguardian
