Brazil’s largest ever dinosaur is found: Fossils discovered in a cupboard after 60 years shed light on 82ft-long beast
A South American dinosaur of truly magnificent proportions is claimed to be the largest ever to have been discovered in Brazil.
Researchers announced their discovery after analysing fossilised bones of the giant, long-necked herbivore, which languished in a storage cupboard for 60 years.
Director of Rio de Janeiro’s Earth Sciences Museum, Diogenes Campos, said he named the 25-meter-long dinosaur Austroposeidon magnificus.
Brazilian scientists say they have discovered the fossil of the largest dinosaur ever found in South America’s biggest country. Director of Rio de Janeiro’s Earth Sciences Museum, Diogenes Campos (pictured), named the 25-meter-long dinosaur Austroposeidon magnificus.
The animal is believed to belong to the Titanosaur group of herbivores which had large bodies, long necks and tails and relatively small skulls.
He said the titanosaur was about 20 to 26 feet (6 to 8 metres) tall and lived in what is now Brazil some 70 million years ago.
Fossils of the dinosaur’s neck and spinal vertebrae were found near the city of Presidente Prudente in Sao Paulo state in the 1950s.
But the paeleontologist who discovered them, Llewellyn Ivor Price, died in 1980 without being acknowledged for the discovery.
Austroposeidon magnificus was identified from its fossilised neck bone (pictured)
AUSTROPOSEIDON MAGNIFICUS
Museum staff in Rio de Janeiro say the fossils lay in storage for decades, due to lack of funding, resources and expertise for analysis.
But a recent closer inspection of the bones has led them to believe they belong to a huge herbivore.
Austroposeidon magnificus is believed to have belonged to the titanosaur group, a truly enormous group of dinosaurs which lived during the Cretaceous Period in areas that today are in South America, Africa, Antarctica and Australia.
The Brazilian best was more than 25-feet tall and up to 82-feet long from nose to tail.
The newly discovered giant dinosaur is the largest found in Brazil, towering above other titanosaurs found in the region (illustrated)
Since then the fossils have been collecting dust in a cupboard at the museum.
They were re-examined by staff recently after the institute had obtained enough funding, resources and expertise.
Paleontologist Alexander Kellner said Price had so many other specimens to identify that he did not have time to get to Austroposeidon magnificus.
Now, the remnants of the gargantuan dinosaur will go on display to the public for the first time.
Titanosaurs lived during the Cretaceous Period in areas that today are in South America, Africa, Antarctica and Australia.
The Brazilian beast is cousin of the largest dinosaur ever uncovered, the Argentinosaurus huinculensis, which is believed to have reached lengths of 115 feet and was unearthed in neighbouring Argentina.
Analysis of the fossils (pictured) reveal it belonged to the Titanosaur group of herbivores which had large bodies, long necks and tails and relatively small skulls
The fragments of fossilsed vertebrae are believed to be part of the giant animal’s neck (illustrated)
Now, the bones of the gargantuan dinosaur will go on display to the public for the first time
The fossils of the Brazilian beast give an idea of just how large it would have been
Staff at the Museum have claimed the dinosaur, which was discovered in the 1950s, is the largest to have ever been found. Pictured is paeleontologist Alexander Kellner holding one of the bones
The collection of fossils lay in a storage cupboard at the Earth Sciences Museum, in Rio de Janeiro, for decades
They were re-examined by staff recently after the institute had obtained enough funding, resources and expertise