A newly named species of sauropod is not only the largest known dinosaur, it now also holds the record as the largest animal that has ever walked on land.
That's the conclusion of the first scientific description of an especially large titanosaur, which lumbered across what is now Argentina during the Cretaceous.
Dubbed Patagotitan mayorum, the long-necked behemoth lived about 102 million years ago and was likely more than 120 feet long and weighed 69 tons, or about the same as 12 African elephants (the current largest land dweller).
By those numbers, Patagotitan just edges out the previous “largest dinosaur ever,” another titanosaur called Dreadnoughtus.
When paleontologists José Luis Carbadillo and Diego Pol from the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET)