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Meet the Titanosaur at AMNH

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A mighty Titanosaur, the recently-discovered herbivore that measures 37.186 meters (122 feet) long, now stands on the fourth floor of New York City’s American Museum of Natural History. Its discovery is so recent (2014) that it has yet to be formally named by paleontologists. Instead, their time went into 3D scanning the sauropod’s bones in the field and in the lab, digitizing them within a month.

That data actualized machine-carved foam shapes that a casting team could make molds from. The huge fiberglass bone replica on display in AMNH’s fossil-filled halls is a culmination of that work. From AMNH:

The Titanosaur lived in the forests of today’s Patagonia about 100 to 95 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous period, and weighed 70 tons. It is one of the largest dinosaurs ever discovered.

The fossils on which this cast is based were excavated in the Patagonian desert region of Argentina by a team from the Museo Paleontologico Egidio Feruglio led by José Luis Carballido and Diego Pol, who received his Ph.D. at the American Museum of Natural History.

building a titanosaur

In this video, Dr. Mark Norell, chair and Macaulay Curator in the Division of Paleontology, describes how such a massive animal could have supported its own weight and why the Titanosaur is one of the more spectacular finds during what he describes as “the golden age of paleontology.”

How do you build a titanosaur? Watch this time lapse:

Related reading includes Titanosaurs: the largest animals ever to walk the Earth and 122-Foot Titanosaur: Staggeringly Big Dino Barely Fits into Museum.

Plus, learn more about these newly-discovered dinos:
• Siats Meekerorum
Dreadnoughtus
• A titanosaur in 360° VR with Sir David Attenborough

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