South America's largest country has found its biggest discovery yet. A dinosaur of greater and magnificent proportions is claimed by Brazil as its largest capture ever.
After 60 years of staying in storage, the Austroposeidon magnificus comes out with a bang. The long-necked herbivore has made it to the Earth Sciences Museum fame. Director Diogenes Campos is credited for naming the giant dinosaur.
Analysis of the fossilized bones has yielded that the extinct animal is part of the Titanosaur group. The plant-eating organisms have large bodies, long tails and small skulls. It is estimated that this kind of dinosaur lived around 70 million years ago. It has been projected that the Austroposiedon grew between 20 to 26 feet or 6 to 8 meters tall.
During the 1950s, fossils identified to be the neck and the spinal vertebrae have been discovered in Presidente Prudente City in SaoPaulo. Llewellyn Ivor Price is supposedly the paleontologist who found the bones but he passed away in 1980 without being recognized for his discovery.
The study has long been delayed due to shortages in funding and related resources. The lack of analytical expertise has also shelved the investigation.
Fellow paleontologist Alexander Kellner adds that Price was not able to focus on the Austroposeidon because he had been busy with other specimens.
The herbivorous group Titanosaur is belived to exist during the Cretaceous era in locations now identified as Australia, Africa, Antarctica and South America. From nose to tail, the animal is measured to be 82 feet long.
Brazil's biggest prehistoric catch is related to the largest dinosaur ever unearthed which is the Argentinosaurus huinculensis. The animal found in Argentina has reached a length of 115 feet.
The 42-feet long Maxakalisaurus topai has been considered as Brazil's biggest until the Austroposeidon magnificus dethroned it.
Campos further states that there are many more breakthroughs to be made in the fossil-rich central region of Brazil.
