New dinosaur, Dreadnoughtus, found mostly complete

link Charles Fox: Philadelphia Inquirer/MCT

Dr. Kenneth Lacovara, a paleontologist at Drexel University, talks about the humerus of Dreadnoughtus schrani and its many muscle scans. Dreadnoughtus, which means "fears nothing," was discovered in Argentina by Lacovara.

Staff and wire reports

It just might be the biggest dinosaur skeleton ever unearthed, according to a report released Thursday by the journal Scientific Reports.

That’s why the discovery of a mostly complete Dreadnoughtus in Argentina is making headlines around the world.

But that’s not why the curator at Mesalands Community College’s Dinosaur Museum in Tucumcari is so excited.

“If you ask me, I could not care less if it was the largest dinosaur ever born,” said Paleontologist Axel Hungerbuehler. “What has me excited about this discovery is the fact that the skeleton is mostly complete.”

Until now, scientists have had to estimate the size of the creature by comparing its bones to smaller species.

This find opens doors to a deeper understanding of all aspects of the massive dinosaurs.

“There is so much that can be learned from this new discovery,” Hungerbuehler said. “If you would have asked me 10 years ago about the Titanosaurs in the Cretaceous period, I would have said they were around, but they were not as prevalent as they were in other periods. Later (when more evidence was gathered) I discovered I was mistaken.”

Still, the size of Dreadnoughtus is what stirs the imagination.

The New York Times reports it was 85 feet long, 30 feet tall, 130,000 pounds — 65 tons — and still growing when it died.

That’s bigger than a Boeing 737. Even a humpback whale weighs only about 35 tons.

The Washington Post reported the T-Rex weighed about 8 tons. Diplodocus, the classic dinosaur with the long neck and tail, weighed 18 tons, the Post reported.

“The word big does not do justice to a massive, long-necked dinosaur that shook the Earth in Argentina about 77 million years ago,” Reuters news service reported. “Try colossal, enormous, gargantuan and stupendous — and you might come close to an accurate description of this behemoth, known to scientists as Dreadnoughtus schrani.”

Dreadnoughtus is an English term meaning “fears nothing.” While it was a vegetarian, experts doubt it feared any meat-eating adversary.

The Associated Press reported Kenneth Lacovara of Drexel University in Philadelphia found the specimen in Argentina’s southern Patagonia in 2005. Lacovara and colleagues released their study on the behemoth on Thursday.

Lacovara said he can't claim it was the most massive dinosaur known, because the remains of comparably sized beasts are too fragmentary to allow a direct comparison.

But it’s the heaviest land animal whose weight during life can be calculated directly with a standard technique that analyzes bones of the upper limbs, he said.

Lacovara said the bones were probably 75 million to 77 million years old.

— Staff writer Thomas Garcia contributed to this report