Fossil bones of a dinosaur 98 million years old have been found in Neuquen province in north-west Patagonia. They are thought to belong to the largest animal ever to have lived on Earth. The find is being studied by Argentina's Zapala Museum, Museo de La Plata, Museo Egidio Feruglio and Rio Negro, and the University of Zaragoza.

According to a report published last week in the journal Cretaceous Research, the bones include the dinosaur's pelvic structure and 24 vertebrae from its tail. The dinosaur was a titanosaur, a group known as sauropods, which were among the animals living on Earth at the time. They had long necks and tails, huge bodies, small heads and four elephant-like legs, and they were herbivores.

The popular dinosaurs in the film Jurassic Park, including Diplodocus, Apatosaurus, Brachiosaurus and Brontosaurus, were sauropods. They lived in the Jurassic period, 150 million years ago. Towards the end of the Cretaceous period, about 70 million years ago, titanosaurs dominated. When a large asteroid struck the Earth 66 million years ago, they were wiped out along with most non-avian dinosaurs at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary.

Titanosaurs are the largest of the sauropods, weighing between 40,000 kg and 90,000 kg. The largest titanosaur fossils have come from Patagonia, where the new fossil was found.

Titanosaurs have been found on every continent except Antarctica. The two best known are Patagotitan and Argentinosaurus, weighing about 70,000 kg to 99,000 kg.

Experts say that without a humerus or femur from the new fossil's legs it is hard to determine how big the dinosaur was or how much it weighed. But they estimate that it exceeded Argentinosaurus and Patagotitan in both size and weight.

Scientists also estimate that the animal may have been 122 feet long and weighed about 90,000 kg.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.