Skeletal stays of latest dinosaur weighing as a lot as 9 elephants found by scientists: “The last titan”

Scientists have recognized a large new dinosaur from stays found in Thailand, with the creature estimated to have weighed as a lot as 9 grownup elephants.

The long-necked herbivore stretched 88 toes and weighed about 27 tons, according to a study revealed within the journal Scientific Reports.

It in all probability roamed what’s now Thailand between 100 million and 120 million years in the past and is the most important ever present in Southeast Asia, researchers mentioned.

They estimated the brand new dinosaur had the identical heft as 9 grownup Asian elephants.

“Our dinosaur is big by most people’s standards — it likely weighed at least 10 tons more than Dippy the Diplodocus,” mentioned lead researcher Thitiwoot Sethapanichsakul, referring to the large composite forged beforehand on show at London’s Natural History Museum.

The Thai Ph.D. scholar known as the newly found sauropod “the last titan” as a result of it was unearthed in a single the youngest rock formations the place dinosaurs are present in Thailand, in keeping with University College London.

The area later turned a shallow sea, he added, “so this may be the last or most recent large sauropod we will find in Southeast Asia.”

The first stays of the large creature have been unearthed a decade in the past by locals in northeast Thailand, however the excavation was not accomplished till 2024, in keeping with the research, revealed Thursday.

The stays partially resembled these of beforehand found sauropods, however had sufficient distinctive options to be thought-about a brand new species.

It has been dubbed Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis after a “mythological serpent-like creature found in various Asian cultures, especially in northeastern Thailand, often associated with water and Buddhism, and titan, a giant in Greek mythology,” the authors write.

At the time the Nagatitan roamed the area, the ecosystem’s largest predator was a relative of the meat-eating dinosaur Carcharodontosaurus, which measured about 26 toes lengthy and weighed about 3.5 tons.

“At that size, it was dwarfed by Nagatitan. At full size, Nagatitan likely had very little to fear in terms of predation,” Sethapanichsakul told the Reuters news agency.

A life-size reconstruction is on show at Bangkok’s Thainosaur Museum, in keeping with University College London.

In 2023, a dinosaur skeleton uncovered by scientists in northeastern Thailand was additionally deemed to be a newly found species. The skeleton of Minimocursor phunoiensis — which lived 150 million years in the past on what’s now the Khorat Plateau — represented “one of the best-preserved dinosaurs ever found in Southeast Asia,” scientists mentioned on the time.