Paleontologists are in awe of the latest discovery, and it is part of the family of sauropod dinosaurs called "Dreadnoughtus Schrani". Most of these big lizards have big names, but this is equally as huge in person too. As a bonus, the fossil is complete, and that allows scientists to study such large vertebrates better.
The physical dimensions are huge and more massive than expected too. Its length is 85 feet and a super-heavyweight at 65 tons that makes it a large impervious beast when it was alive. The Dreadnoughtus Schrani is amazing because the nearly complete skeleton help estimates the immense mass it has. The find has 70% of the bones accounted for, compared to similar titanosaurians with incomplete skeletons found. A more complete fossil will give a better representation of its anatomy, biomechanics of its huge size.
According to Kenneth Lacovara, PhD, an associate professor in Drexel University's College of Arts and Sciences, the discoverer of this amazing animal in Patagonia, Argentina. He describes the titan to have the combined weight of 12 African elephants or seven adult T.rex, it was one imposing sauropod because of this. Some evidence points to the skeleton, which might have not been a fully grown adult Dreadnoughtus. The implication is that it could grow bigger, but this is the best evidence so far.
The clue to its supermassive size is the big parts of the skeleton, by any standard or far bigger than imagined. The features found were big, tail bones were more than three feet long that made up a thirty-foot-long tail. Other bones were huge like the scapula, ribs, toes, claw, and bones that made up the legs were six-feet tall, and tall humerus. A bonus was a smaller Dreadnoughtus Schrani, with the bigger one.
Before discovering the Dreadnoughtus Schrani, another titanosaur "Elaltitan" held the record at 47 tons when alive. But, for guessing the mass of the Dreadnoughtus which is based on the size of the thigh bone and upper arm bone as the basis. Measuring the lengths of the femur, humerus, the animals mass can be estimated. The estimations will be accurate too, missing these bones, which can lead to inaccuracies. By comparison, the Dreadnoughtus is about 45.3 complete, with 70.4 % of bones are there without the bones of the skull. Other giant titanosaurs were less complete than this fossil find.
Except for the Argentinosaurus that is bigger than the Dreadnoughtus, it has a few bone specimens that need more pieces to verify its true mass. The problem with many titanosaurs is the fossils are too few and hard to comedreadnoughtsans of the dreadnoughtus reveal the musculature and the attachment points on the bones, to determine how its biomechanics worked. This gives indications of the body type, how fast it grows and other aspects relevant to the animal.
A house-sized body and a real super-heavy-weighoffense a tail made for offence which equals a tough sauropod to tangle with. The battleship supreme of dinosaurs and impregnable where it lived, this is the Dreadnoughtus Schrani. In the age of dinosaurs, sauropods were big, but this was a living land of leviathans.
