Posted on 01/25/2021 11:17:46 AM PST by Red Badger
"It's obviously still inside the rock, so we have a few more years of digging ahead of us."
Paleontologists in Argentina have discovered the fossilized remains of a 98 million-year-old titanosaur that they say may be from the largest animal ever to walk the earth.
A team of researchers with Naturales y Museo, Universidad de Zaragoza, and Universidad Nacional del Comahue actually found the remains in 2012, but excavation work only began in 2015, according to paleontologist Jose Luis Carballido of the Museo Egidio Feruglio. In a new report published in the journal Cretaceous Research, the group lays out what they’ve found.
“In this contribution we present a giant titanosaur sauropod from the Candeleros Formation (Cenomanian, circa 98 Ma) of Neuquén Province, composed of an articulated sequence of 20 most anterior plus 4 posterior caudal vertebrae and several appendicular bones. This specimen clearly proves the presence of a second taxon from Candeleros Formation, in addition to Andesaurus, and is here considered one of the largest sauropods ever found, probably exceeding Patagotitan in size,” the published report says.
Patagotitan is a species that lived 100 million to 95 million years ago and measured up to 122 feet long and weighed more than 70 tons. The new find appears to be 10% to 20% larger than those attributed to Patagotitan, the biggest dinosaur ever identified, according to a statement Wednesday from the National University of La Matanza’s CTYS scientific agency.
“It is a huge dinosaur, but we expect to find much more of the skeleton in future field trips, so we’ll have the possibility to address with confidence how really big it was,” Alejandro Otero, a paleontologist with Argentina’s Museo de La Plata, told CNN via email.
But researchers really don’t know what they’ve found.
“While anatomical analysis does not currently allow us to regard it as a new species, the morphological disparity and the lack of equivalent elements with respect to coeval taxa also prevent us from assigning this new material to already known genera. A preliminary phylogenetic analysis places this new specimen at the base of the clade leading to Lognkosauria, in a polytomy with Bonitasaura. The specimen here reported strongly suggests the co-existence of the largest and middle-sized titanosaurs with small-sized rebbachisaurids at the beginning of the Late Cretaceous in Neuquén Province, indicating putative niche partitioning,” says the report.
“Titanosaurs belong to the sauropod family, which means they were herbivores, had massive bodies and long necks and tails,” Phys.org reported. “Such dinosaurs would have had few worries from meat-eating enemies if they managed to grow to full size. Their fossils have been found on all continents except Antarctica. The researchers conclude by noting that more digging in the area will likely reveal more fossils from the same dinosaur and perhaps evidence of its true size.”
The paleontologists are still searching for more body parts, buried deep in rock, especially the large femur or humerus bones, which can be used to more accurately estimate a long-extinct creature’s body mass.
“We have more than half the tail, a lot of hip bones,” said Carballido, who also worked on the classification of Patagotitan a few years ago. “It’s obviously still inside the rock, so we have a few more years of digging ahead of us.”
Oddly enough, the impact structure was first discovered but went unrecognized for what it was, by Pemex, sometime in the 1960s or 1970s.
Got on that bad motor scooter...
got on that baaaaaad motor scooter... and...
Fossils.
Thanx for the link. Learn something new everyday!
“BTW, I am convinced that the speed of light has slowed “
Hasn’t that already been proven with atomic clocks at higher altitudes? Like if you take the slow down and calculate the span of the universe what you see is 14 billion years of time/age, but it is actually 6,000 years old due to slowing of time?
“an earlier atmosphere had about 35 percent oxygen compared to today’s 21 percent.”
And that is why I believe the carbon dating is all jacked up with errors. To base a dating system on current environmental observations and then base your whole said science of everything on that guess is just insane to me.
No thanks, I’ll stick with the Scriptures that gives me the beginning, ending, middle, and times in between and has yet to been proven wrong.
“Whales don’t need a superstructure to get around.”
Isn’t that covered by give me a lever long enough and I can move the world?
Not just basing a dating system on current environmental observations but on uniform rate of decay. Meanwhile I remember Wikipedia saying that Goliath could not be over 9' tall since he would not be able to breathe, but that presupposes that the atmosphere was as today, even if maybe not in LA.
“Not just basing a dating system on current environmental observations but on uniform rate of decay.”
Very good point.
After all; Barringer - a LOT closer in time to the present; should have left SOME kind of ‘event’ marker other than that big hole in AZ.
I see what you are doing here; but it is the SPEED of the clocks that shift the time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation
“Speed” dating seems to be rife with problems; too.
May have, and it may have survived here and there, but compared to Chicxulub, it was a fart in a hurricane.
“Speed” dating seems to be rife with problems; too.
1. I believe the Bible word for Word and that makes us about 6,000 years old from Genesis to Revelation.
As far as it takes millions of years to form all the surface features, Mt. St Helens and other small anomalies prove that major features can form in weeks just imagine what a super volcano could do.
2. Genetics don’t generally improve with mutation, but loose information, so we and all other life just couldn’t be that old.
3. DNA in dinosaur flesh and bones and paintings of them on rock walls clearly indicate that man and beast was present at the same time.
4. The decoding of DNA clearly shows that the code couldn’t have slowly come together as some think, it has to be all formed all at one time to work.
5. Modern man is regressing instead of progressing as they would have us believe. Between the we have too many people on the earth, the homosexuals, and abortion we are racing to the extinction of the human race.
6. “but it is the SPEED of the clocks that shift the time.”
There is absolutely no time except what GOD created for this temporary dimension and the existence of His creation for His good purpose.
7. Occam’s razor
“I see what you are doing here; but it is the SPEED of the clocks that shift the time.”
2 Peter 3:8
Time is Mother Nature’s way of making sure that everything does not happen at once.
“Time is Mother Nature’s way of making sure that everything does not happen at once.”
That is a funny, but great point.
I wonder which critters came first?
Those with an exoskeleton; or those with an endoskeleton?
And how was the transition from one in to the other accomplished?
“I wonder which critters came first?”
Don’t have a clue, all I know is they were created on Day 6 the same day as man?
“And how was the transition from one in to the other accomplished?”
Maybe DNA either expressed or not expressed or just different insects from the beginning.
Sorry.
Those questions are for our FR Evolutionists to answer.
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