Giant Fossils in Argentina May Belong to the Largest Dinosaur Ever Discovered

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The 98 million-year-old remains were discovered in 2012 in the Neuquén River Valley of northwest Patagonia, but have not yet been fully excavated. "Given the measurements of the new skeleton, it looks likely that this is a contender for one of the largest, if not the largest, sauropods that have ever been found," paleontologist Paul Barrett told Live Science.

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00:00Palaeontologists in Argentina have uncovered massive human-sized bones they say may belong

00:09to the largest dino to ever walk the earth. The fossils, dating to 98 million years ago,

00:16appear to be 20% larger than those of the current largest titanosaur on record,

00:22according to the National University of La Matanza. That gargantuan dino stretched as

00:27long as four school buses end-to-end and weighed roughly the same as a dozen elephants.

00:33Titanosaurs were among the largest sauropods, long-necked plant-eaters that lived from the

00:38late Jurassic period to the end of the Cretaceous. The newly discovered titanosaur is one of many

00:44that have been found in South America in recent years. Much of the skeleton remains trapped in

00:50the rock, and scientists aren't quite ready to declare whether it belongs to a new species.

00:55The deciding factor could be the large limb bones, such as the femur or humerus, often used to

01:02determine a dinosaur's body mass. The findings were published in the journal Cretaceous Research.

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