Paleontologists have unearthed a dinosaur the size of a Boeing 737 in Patagonia

Scientists have officially confirmed that a dinosaur of grandiose size found in Patagonia is the largest land animal in the history of the Earth. Imagine a standard pool or seven elephants standing behind each other — these were the sizes of the ancient giants, which were attributed to the new species Patagotitan mayorum. As for the weight, it was quite a bit short of the weight of a small space probe.

(7 photos in total)

The remains of the dinosaur were first discovered by shepherd Aurelio Hernandez at the Patagonian rancho La Flecha in 2012. The owner of the ranch called paleontologists there, and after 18 months they extracted all the bones from the ground — as it turned out, the remains of six young dinosaurs.

All six individuals were extracted from three geological layers: probably, the fact is that they all died at the lake, where they and other herbivorous lizards came to drink. Perhaps during periods of drought, the lake dried up and dinosaurs died of thirst on its shores. And the scavenging dinosaurs, who ate the remains of dead animals, trampled their bones deep into the clay, which contributed to the preservation.

The fossils included the vertebrae and ribs of dinosaurs, which were assigned to the new species Patagotitan mayorum. Its representatives weighed an average of about 62-69 tons, and their length from the head to the tip of the tail was more than 35 meters, six of which were on the neck. And it is likely that this is not the limit, because in adulthood these individuals could reach even larger sizes.

The ancient giants surpassed in length all known land animals — both extinct and modern. And their weight was more than the mass of some modifications of the Boeing 737.

Size comparison: Patagotitan mayorum femur and a member of the research group

Reconstruction of Patagotitan mayorum

The ancient herbivorous giant Patagotitan mayorum lived during the Mesozoic, about 100 thousand years ago. Most likely, such extreme gigantism appeared only once in the course of evolution. All the colossal Titanosaurs lived only between 113-83 million years ago in the south of modern South America. Probably, the long necks and tails of these lizards helped them to withstand the unusually hot temperatures characteristic of that period.

Reconstruction of the skeleton of P. mayorum at the American Museum of Natural History in New York

The discovery so impressed the scientists of the National Research Council (Argentina) that they gave one skeleton to the American Museum of Natural History, where it was exhibited in 2016, when the new species had not even received a name yet.