Image source, Reuters
A new type of giant long-necked dinosaur has been identified by scientists from remains unearthed in Thailand.
Nagatitan, the largest dinosaur ever found in Southeast Asia, weighed 27 tons—as much as nine adult Asian elephants—and measured 27 meters in length, longer than a diplodocus.
Like that dinosaur, it belonged to the family of sauropods, long-necked herbivores.
A team of researchers from the United Kingdom and Thailand identified the species from fossils found next to a pond in northeastern Thailand a decade ago.
Scientists say the find sheds light on how changes in ancient climate conditions allowed the development of gigantic dinosaurs.
The full name of the dinosaur is Nagatitan chaiyaphumensiswhere “naga” refers to a snake in Southeast Asian folklore, “titan” refers to the gods of Greek mythology, and chaiyaphumensis means “from Chaiyaphum”, the province where the fossils were discovered.
This dinosaur lived between 100 million and 120 million years ago—about 40 million years before Tyrannosaurus rex—and was about twice the size of that creature.
Thitiwoot Sethapanichsakul, a doctoral student at University College London (UCL) and lead author of the study that was published in the journal Scientific Reports, He said researchers referred to the nagatitan as Thailand’s “last titan” because the fossils were found in the country’s most recent dinosaur-bearing rock formation.
“The younger rocks, deposited towards the end of the age of dinosaurs, are unlikely to contain dinosaur remains because by then the region had become a shallow sea,” said Sethapanichsakul, of Thai origin.
“So this may be the last or most recent large sauropod we find in Southeast Asia,” he added.
Image source, Reuters
Sethapanichsakul, who describes himself as a “dinosaur kid,” said in a UCL news release that the study also “fulfills a childhood promise to name a dinosaur.”
The nagatitan is the fourteenth dinosaur to be named in Thailand.
Paleontologist Sita Manitkoon of Mahasarakham University said the country has a high diversity of dinosaur fossils and is “possibly the third most abundant in Asia in terms of dinosaur remains.”
Nagatitan inhabited Earth when the planet’s atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were rising, consistent with high global temperatures.
Paul Upchurch, professor at UCL and co-author of the study, noted that the sauropod family reached large sizes at that time.
“It seems a little strange that sauropods could withstand higher temperature conditions,” he told National Geographic, since large bodies retain heat and are more difficult to cool.
Upchurch explained to the agency Reuters that “it is likely that high temperatures had an impact on the vegetation on which sauropods, which were large herbivores, fed.”
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