Experts have uncovered the remains of a gigantic dinosaur in Argentina, and believe it could be one of the largest creatures to have ever walked the Earth.
Paleontologists
discovered the fossilized remains of a 98 million-year-old titanosaur in
Neuquén Province in Argentina's northwest Patagonia, in thick, sedimentary
deposits known as the Candeleros Formation.
The 24
vertebrae of the tail and elements of the pelvic and pectoral girdle discovered
are thought to belong to a titanosaur, a diverse group of sauropod dinosaurs,
characterized by their large size, a long neck and tail, and four-legged
stance.
In research
published in the journal Cretaceous
Research, experts
say they believe the creature to be "one of the largest sauropods ever
found" and could exceed the size of a Patagotitan, a species which lived
100 million to 95 million years ago and measured up to a staggering 37.2 meters
(122 feet) long.
"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
really big it was," Alejandro Otero, a paleontologist with Argentina's
Museo de La Plata, told CNN via email.
Titanosaur
fossils have been found on all continents except Antarctica. But the biggest
"multi-ton" varieties of the species -- including those titanosaurs
exceeding 40 tons -- have mostly been discovered in Patagonia.
Without
analyzing the dinosaur's humerus or femur, experts say it is not yet possible
to say how much the creature weighs. However, the partially recovered dinosaur is
thought to have a body mass exceeding or comparable to an Argentinosaurus.
Patagotitans
may have been the world's largest terrestrial animal of all time, and weighed
up to 77 tons, while Argentinosaurus measured up to 40 meters and weighed up to 110
tons -- weighing more than 12 times more than an African elephant (up to 9
tons).
Experts
believe that the specimen strongly suggests the co-existence of larger
titanosaurs together with medium-sized titanosaurs and small-sized
rebbachisaurids at the beginning of the Late Cretaceous period, which began 101
million years ago.
"These
size differences could indeed explain the existence of such sauropod diversity
in the Neuquén Basin during the Late Cretaceous in terms of niche
partitioning," they wrote.
Researchers
said that, while they don't believe the creature to belong to a new species,
they have so far been unable to assign it to a known genus of dinosaur.
The
research was conducted by Argentina's The Zapala Museum, Museo de La Plata,
Museo Egidio Feruglio and the universities of Río Negro and Zaragoza.
