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Asia's Largest Dinosaur Unearthed
14 May
Summary
- Largest known dinosaur in Southeast Asia discovered.
- Skeletal remains indicate a plant-eating behemoth.
- Dinosaur lived alongside crocodiles and pterosaurs.
An immense sauropod, Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis, has been identified as the largest dinosaur discovered in Southeast Asia. Unearthed in Thailand's Chaiyaphum province, this colossal herbivore lived around 113 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period. Fossils indicate a creature approaching 90 feet in length, suggesting it dwarfed even the largest predators of its time.
Nagatitan belonged to the sauropod lineage, characterized by long necks and tails. Its estimated body mass ranges from 25 to 28 tons. This dinosaur likely consumed large volumes of vegetation, such as conifers and seed ferns, in a subtropical climate featuring forests and savannas.
This discovery sheds light on sauropod diversity in Southeast Asia, a region with limited fossil records for these giants. Nagatitan represents the largest and geologically youngest sauropod found in the area, which later became a shallow sea, preventing further sauropod evolution there.
The existence of Nagatitan coincides with a period of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide and high global temperatures. Researchers are exploring potential links between these environmental factors and the gigantism observed in sauropods across different continents during this era.
