I PRAY THAT YOU TAKE YOUR TIME AND READ THIS ARTICLE. Scientists have discovered the fossilized remains of a new long-necked, long-tailed dinosaur that has taken the crown for largest terrestrial animal with a body mass that can be accurately determined. Measurements of bones from its hind leg and foreleg revealed that the animal was 65 tons, and still growing when it died in the Patagonian hills of Argentina about 77 million years ago. “To put this in perspective, an African elephant is about five tons, T. rex is eight tons, Diplodocus is 18 tons, and a Boeing 737 is around 50 tons,” said study author and paleontologist Kenneth Lacovara at Drexel University. “And then you have Dreadnoughtus at 65 tons.” But its enormous bulk also had a downside. Based on the width and strength of its skeleton, toppling over would likely spell death for such a heavy animal. “If you look at its really big ribs, theres no way theyre going to withstand 65 tons of weight on top of them,” he said. “It would have been a catastrophic event in the life of a Dreadnoughtus if it fell over.” However, it probably didnt do much walking around since its 37-foot-long neck could already provide access to a wide bounty of vegetation. “How do you come up with a body size that is so enormous when youre a terrestrial animal?” said Luis Chiappe, director of the National History Museum of Los Angeless Dinosaur Institute, who was not involved in the study. “You need to have a structural design that allows you to support a body like that, and you have to be potentially adapted to eat 24 hours a day, nonstop, with a minimal amount of sleep.” On the first day of the 2005 field season in southern Argentina, Lacovara spotted a little lump of bone sticking out of the ground. It was maybe the 20th fossil he had found that day, so he didnt think much of it. As he kept digging, he realized it was a massive dinosaur femur that stretched over six feet long. Lacovara still wasnt all that thrilled — isolated bones are found all the time — until more and more pieces started popping up. By the end of that first day, he had added a tibia, a fibula and a half dozen tail vertebrae to his collection. “At that point, Im pretty excited,” he said. “But I had no idea that we were going to walk away with 130 bones.” The huge creature also had a smaller companion, which Lacovara and his colleagues also dug up. Both got caught in quicksand, which is how their bones became so well-preserved.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 16:23:17 +0000
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