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Researchers Unearth 130 Feet Long And 65 Feet Tall 'Biggest Dinosaur Ever'

Godzilla, it seems, has company with a newly discovered, seven-stories-tall marvel of nature. But fortunately for other dinosaurs of the Late Cretaceous era, this titanosaur was an herbivore. The remains were discovered in the desert La Flecha by a local farm worker.

Cover image via haaretz.com

Move over, Godzilla. Because the largest dinosaur ever known to walk the earth has been unearthed in Argentina, and it really is a monster.

Image via bbcimg.co.uk

Fossilised bones of a dinosaur believed to be the largest creature ever to walk the Earth have been unearthed in Argentina, palaeontologists say. Based on its huge thigh bones, it was 40m (130ft) long and 20m (65ft) tall.

bbc.com

Weighing in at 80,000 kg, it was as heavy as 14 African elephants, and seven tonnes heavier than the previous record holder, Argentinosaurus

A technician lays next to the femur of a dinosaur -- likely to be the largest ever to roam the earth, in Rawson, Chubut, some 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) south of Buenos Aires, May 16, 2014.

Image via vox-cdn.com

It's estimated that the massive beast weighed almost 80 tons (80,000 kg) and stood 65 feet tall (20 meters) when it walked the earth some 95 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous period.

theverge.com

Scientists believe it is a new species of titanosaur - an enormous herbivore dating from the Late Cretaceous period.

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A local farm worker first stumbled on the remains in the desert near La Flecha, Patagonia. The fossils were then excavated by a team of palaeontologists from the Museum of Palaeontology Egidio Feruglio.

Dr Diego Pol explains how the weight of the dinosaur was calculated

Image via bbcimg.co.uk

They unearthed the partial skeletons of seven individuals - about 150 bones in total - all in "remarkable condition". A film crew from the BBC Natural History Unit was there to capture the moment the scientists realised exactly how big their discovery was.

bbc.com

By measuring the length and circumference of the largest femur (thigh bone), they calculated the animal weighed 80,000 kg

Image via bbcimg.co.uk

"Given the size of these bones, which surpass any of the previously known giant animals, the new dinosaur is the largest animal known that walked on Earth," the researchers told BBC News. "Its length, from its head to the tip of its tail, was 40m. Standing with its neck up, it was about 20m high - equal to a seven-storey building."

time.com

This giant herbivore lived in the forests of Patagonia between 95 and 100 million years ago, based on the age of the rocks in which its bones were found. But despite its magnitude, it does not yet have a name.

The new dinosaur is a type of sauropod similar to Argentinosaurus, illustrated here

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"It will be named describing its magnificence and in honour to both the region and the farm owners who alerted us about the discovery," the researchers said. There have been many previous contenders for the title "world's biggest dinosaur".

independent.co.uk

How it compaares: Size comparison between Argentinosaurus (shown in purple) and a human

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The most recent pretender to the throne was Argentinosaurus, a similar type of sauropod, also discovered in Patagonia. Originally thought to weigh in at 100 tonnes, it was later revised down to about 70 tonnes - just under the 77 tonnes that this new sauropod is thought to have weighed.

bbc.com

The picture is muddied by the various complicated methods for estimating size and weight, based on skeletons that are usually incomplete. Argentinosaurus was estimated from only a few bones. But the researchers here had dozens to work with, making them more confident that they really have found "the big one".

theverge.com

Dr Paul Barrett, a dinosaur expert from London's Natural History Museum, agreed the new species is "a genuinely big critter. But there are a number of similarly sized big sauropod thigh bones out there," he cautioned.

Technicians pose by the fossilized bones of what is believed to have the largest-ever dinosaur

Image via dailymail.co.uk

"Without knowing more about this current find it's difficult to be sure. One problem with assessing the weight of both Argentinosaurus and this new discovery is that they're both based on very fragmentary specimens - no complete skeleton is known, which means the animal's proportions and overall shape are conjectural."

bbc.com

"Moreover, several different methods exist for calculating dinosaur weight (some based on overall volume, some on various limb bone measurements) and these don't always agree with each other, with large measures of uncertainty."

independent.co.uk

Seven of the massive dinosaurs were found in the same spot in Argentina's Patagonia region.

Image via vox-cdn.com

"So it's interesting to hear another really huge sauropod has been discovered, but ideally we'd need much more material of these supersized animals to determine just how big they really got."

bbc.com

WATCH: Dr Diego Pol explains how the measuring process works

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