Scientists from Montana State University have discovered the remains of the largest dinosaur in North America and one of the largest known to date in the world. An article by the researchers describing the discovery appeared in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica
The individual found by scientists belongs to the sauropod species (dinosaurs moving on four limbs) Alamosaurus sanjuanensis, discovered back in 1922. Until recently, it was believed that these were large, but not the largest dinosaurs - the body weight of an adult Alamosaurus reached 33 tons. In 2009, however, a work appeared, which proved that the largest remains of A. sanjuanensis known at that time did not belong to an adult, but to a “young man” who was still growing.
As part of the new work, scientists analyzed bones found in the state of New Mexico between 2003 and 2009. Comparing the results of measurements and reconstruction of bone fragments (the skeleton of the individual they studied was only 30 percent complete) with data on other dinosaurs, scientists came to the conclusion that the mass of the alamosaurus reached 73 tons.
Scientists cannot yet name the exact length of the lizard, referring to the fundamental difficulty of determining the shape of the lizard's body by parts of the skeleton. At the same time, the researchers believe that the dinosaur was one of the largest in the world - in particular, in size it could be compared with the Argentinosaurus.
Argentinosaurus
The question of which of the land dinosaurs can be considered the largest known at the moment is the subject of heated debate. For example, according to some paleontologists, the largest lizard is Amphicoelias fragillimus, whose mass reached 50 tons. At the same time, these estimates are based on one single vertebra, which was lost after description and study in the 70s of the last century.