Scientists have been digging at the site for over three years now and have finally hit pay dirt (pay dirt… digging… get it? I’ll show myself out now…). Researchers have unearthed what they believe is the largest dinosaur ever and the biggest animal ever known to have walked on the earth. The creature is estimated to weigh almost 80 tons (as much as 14 elephants) and stand over 65 feet tall (that’s almost as tall as a seven-story building). From its head to the tip of its tail it measures 130 feet – about half the length of a football field!
The gigantic specimen was found in the Patagonia region of Argentina, a hot spot for dinosaur fossils, at a site that researchers have been digging for over three years. Several different dinosaurs have been found at the spot, all in excellent condition. Scientists believe the spot used to be a water source and that the dinosaurs possibly died at the spot, huddling around a dwindling water source.
Scientists believe the new find, a new species of Titanosaur, was an herbivore (meaning it only ate plants). By comparison, the most well-known herbivore, the Apatosaurus (or Brontosaurus as it is more commonly called), is only half the length of the newest find. The most recent pretender to the giant-dinosaur throne was Argentinosaurus, a similar type of sauropod, also discovered in Patagonia.