The dinosaur was twice the size of the modern-day large African elephant.
Jurassic dinosaur fossils seen at the Dinosaur National Monument. The newly-discovered dinosaur is believed to be from the Jurassic period, approximately 200 million years ago. (Mike Lyvers/Getty Images)
Scientists recently discovered the fossils of what was a 26,000-pound dinosaur that lived 200 million years ago.
The newly-unearthed dinosaur was about twice the size of the present-day large African elephant, making it the largest vertebrate ever. Scientists named the new species Ledumahadi mafube, which is Sesotho for “a giant thunderclap at dawn. Sesotho is one of the official indigenous languages in the area of South Africa where the dinosaur was discovered, according to CNN.
The discovery, published in Current Biology on Thursday, estimates that the dinosaur had reached its maximum growth and was an adult, about 14 years old, at the time of its death. It was “the largest animal currently known to have lived on Earth at its time.”
Bones of the dinosaur were first uncovered by co-author, Blair McPhee, in 2012 and were fully excavated over several years to construct the fossil of the once-unknown dinosaur, CNN reported.
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Ledumahadi mafube lived during the Jurassic period and was closely related to sauropod dinosaurs, which are characterized by long necks, long tails, a plant-based diet and walking on four legs. Despite its relation to sauropod, according to the study, the unearthed dinosaur has “a phylogenetically independent origin,” indicating it evolved independently and earlier than the known sauropods.