Dreadnoughtus: A New Dinosaur Discovery

[DLC]

PHILADELPHIA — Eighty-five feet long, 30 feet tall, 130,000 pounds and still growing when it died, a newly described dinosaur is among the largest land animals that ever lived — so big its discoverers are calling it the Dreadnoughtus.

Its skeleton, unearthed in the Patagonia region of Argentina, is the first of this species and the most complete ever found in the group of gargantuan dinosaurs known as titanosaurs, scientists reported on Thursday. An international team led by Kenneth J. Lacovara, a paleontologist at Drexel University in Philadelphia, describes the fossil in the journal Scientific Reports.

“What we can say with certainty is this is the biggest land animal that we can actually put a number on,” Dr. Lacovara said.

Even what remains of the bones is huge. “We’ve got 16 tons of bone in my lab right now,” Dr. Lacovara said.

The better-known Brachiosaurus weighed only 75,000 pounds; an empty Boeing 737-900 weighs about 93,700 pounds. A male African elephant, the largest land animal today, weighs a minuscule 15,000 pounds by comparison. (Blue whales dwarf all land animals, past and present, growing to 300,000 pounds.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/05/science/dinosaur-dreadnoughtus-discovery.html?_r=0

 

[D-V-ANT]

Dreadnoughts and dinosaurs can only be a good thing.

 

[menace-uk-]

That's big. Makes you wonder though, if something this big takes this long to be found, what might we find tomorrow ?

 

[Z A C K]

16 tons of bones in his lab right now. That guy has got a big lab.

 

[Mr Bigglesworth]

looks like it had cannons mounted on its spine. smart evolution, gives it maximum coverage on both sides of the body.

 

[The Wolf King]

That's big. Makes you wonder though, if something this big takes this long to be found, what might we find tomorrow ?

Something very very small.

 

[sharkboy1200]

That's big. Makes you wonder though, if something this big takes this long to be found, what might we find tomorrow ?

I say something medium size. Not too big, not too small. Average if you will.

That said, it's amazing what creatures used to walk around this planet of ours.

 

[Li Tan]

While true, it's amazing what animals exist in it today. Blue Whales for example.

But there's something that just captures the imagination when you think about something that we will never see or something we barely know. I mean, if we discovered Bigfoot was real tomorrow, it would be super exciting for about a year, then it would be just another great ape that scientists study, while other cryptids would continue to fascinate the public. Kind of like the coelocanth.

 

[Videodrome]

That thing could eat my Honda