BY JORDI BOU
London - A life-size cast of the largest known land animal goes on show at London’s Natural History Museum, the first such display in Europe.
One of the most massive creatures ever to have walked on Earth, Patagotitan mayorum was 37m long and weighed 57 tons.
A sauropod from the Early Cretaceous period, the Patagotitan lived 101 million years ago in what is now Argentina.
The remains of Patagotitan mayorum were uncovered in 2010 when a ranch owner in Patagonia came across a gigantic thigh bone sticking out of the ground. Scientists were brought in to investigate, and during digs in 2012, 2013 and 2015, they unearthed hundreds of fossil bones belonging to at least six dinosaurs that died and were buried in three distinct floods.
Argentinian fossil experts later dug up more than 200 pieces of skeleton, the remains of at least six individual animals.
Casts have been made of these bones by the Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio in Trelew, Patagonia, and these form the skeleton that will go on display in London in March.
These creatures were built like suspension bridges with a huge spine, a vast neck for gathering food from trees and a tail to provide balance.
It is estimated that the heart of Patagotitans was more than 1.8m in circumference and 230kg in weight, and that it could have been able to shift around 90 litres of blood per beat, every five seconds.
Despite their colossal size, Patagotitans hatched from eggs that were only about 20cm in diameter – smaller than a football.
“Titanosaur: Life as the biggest dinosaur” opens on March 31 and runs until January 7 next year.
Graphic News