Meet Dreadnoughtus, Biggest Dinosaur Yet

One in Patagonia weighed 65 tons, was still growing
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 4, 2014 12:28 PM CDT
Meet Dreadnoughtus, Biggest Dinosaur Yet
An artist's rendering provided by the Carnegie Museum of Natural History shows the Dreadnoughtus.   (AP Photo/Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Mark A. Klingler)

Introducing the new king of the dinosaurs, at least in terms of size. Researchers in the Patagonia region of Argentina found a brute they've named Dreadnoughtus, and they're laying claim to it being the largest land animal whose size can be accurately measured—thanks mainly to the fact that they found 70% of a skeleton. Some highlights of the study in Scientific Reports.

  • Dimensions: It was 85 feet long and weighed 130,000 pounds. Dreadnoughtus had a 37-foot-long neck that enabled the plant-eater to feast without having to move around much. Also: It was still growing when it died about 77 million years ago.
  • Context: "To put [the dino's 65-ton size] 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," says study author Kenneth Lacovara of Drexel University in the Washington Post.

  • Demise: The big guy and a smaller companion got stuck in something akin to quicksand, which is why the bones are so well preserved.
  • Name: Dreadnoughtus means "fear nothing." The full name is Dreadnoughtus schrani, with "schrani" an homage to tech entrepreneur Adam Schran, who helped fund the research, notes the New York Times.
  • New king coming? Maybe. Researchers think a cousin in the titanosaur group named Argentinosaurus might have been bigger, reports Discovery. They just need to collect enough bones to prove it.
Another recent study says a meteor strike's "bad timing" is to blame for dinosaurs' mass extinction. (More dinosaurs stories.)

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