Museum in America showcases new species of dinosaur
Generations of visitors have flocked to see the renowned blue whale and iconic T-Rex, among other fossil dinosaurs, at the American Museum of Natural History.
This month, the museum has added another must-see exhibit with a cast of a 122-foot-long dinosaur being installed on the fourth floor.
Paleontologists have said that this dinosaur – a giant herbivore that belongs to a group known as titanosaurs – weighs in at around 77 tons, as much as 14 or 15 African elephants.
This species of dinosaur is so new that it has not yet been formally named by the palaeontologists, who discovered it in 2014 in Argentina’s Patagonia region.
The new species lived in the forests of today’s Patagonia around 95 to 100 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous period.
Mark Norell, chairman and Macaulay Curator at the Natural History Museum told CNN: “This animal is so new it doesn’t even have an official species name yet.”
Based on the dinosaur’s characteristics it was placed in the Titanosaur group. This group of dinosaurs are known for their huge lizard-like appearance. They have long necks and whip-like tails, small heads, and walk on four sturdy legs.
At the discovery site, scientists unearthed 223 fossil bones belonging to six individuals of this new species.
The Titanosaur will be shown to the public in a walking pose, with its neck stretched out toward the museum’s fourth-floor elevators as it is the only way the humungous dinosaur would fit in the building.
Some of the best-preserved bones will also be on display, amongst them being the massive femur, which is nearly eight feet long.
It is one of the largest dinosaurs ever discovered. The story of this new dinosaur’s discovery will be the focus of a BBC special release in January.
