A new species of titanosaur that could be the largest dinosaur ever has been discovered in Argentina, scientists say.
Excavated by paleontologists from the Museum of Palaeontology Egidio Feruglio, the partial skeletons of seven dinosaurs show evidence of a previously undiscovered herbivore species that researchers estimate to be 130 feet long and 65 feet tall, BBC News reported.
Researchers believe the dinosaur lived around 100 million years ago. The incredible find, which comprises 150 bones, was brought to light when a local farmhand discovered the fossil site by accident in the desert near La Flecha.
"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 40 meters [about 131 feet]. Standing with its neck up, it was about 20 meters [65 feet] high--equal to a seven-story building."
In recent years, another sauropod named Argentinosaurus was discovered in the same area and at first was believed to have weighed 100 tons, an estimate that was later revised to a substantially smaller 70 tons.
The Argentinosaurus dig yielded just a few bones; in comparison, the recent titanosaur find has given scientists "dozens" to examine. But researchers like Paul Barrett, a dinosaur expert from London's Natural History Museum, caution that it's too soon to label the new titanosaur the biggest land creature ever discovered.
"Without knowing more about this current find it's difficult to be sure," he told BBC News. "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.
"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."
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