A new dinosaur dubbed the ‘Last Titan of Thailand’ weighed more than 9 elephants
Popular Science...
Not long before an asteroid crashed into Earth and wiped out most of the dinosaurs, a long-necked dinosaur the size of nine adult Asian elephants may have been near a windy river peacefully eating plants. The bones of the Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis (aka Nagatitan) would rest there for millions of years, until paleontologists digging near a pond in northeastern Thailand found them. This newly discovered herbivore is the largest ever found in Southeast Asia and is described in a study published today in the journal Scientific Reports.
Paleontologists found Nagatitan’s spine, rib, pelvis, and leg bones about 10 years ago. Its front leg bone alone was about as long as a human and the team believes that Nagatitan weighed 27 tonnes (or about 5,950 pounds) and was 88.5-feet long. It was a member of the sauropod family of dinosaurs, the long-necked, long-tailed plant-eaters that includes Brontosaurus.
“Our dinosaur is big by most people’s standards—it likely weighed at least 10 tonnes more than Dippy the Diplodocus (Diplodocus carnegii),” Thitiwoot (Perth) Sethapanichsakul, a study co-author and PhD student originally from Thailand and studying at University College London, said in a statement. “However, it is still dwarfed by sauropods like Patagotitan (60 tonnes) or Ruyangosaurus (50 tonnes).”
The first part of its genus name “Naga” refers to a mythological aquatic serpent in Thai and Southeast Asian folklore, while “Titan” is a reference to the giants of Greek mythology. Its species name chaiyaphumensis means “from Chaiyaphum,” the Thai province where the fossils were first discovered.
“We refer to Nagatitan as ‘the last titan’ of Thailand. That is because it was discovered in Thailand’s youngest dinosaur-bearing rock formation,” Sethapanichsakul said. “Younger rocks laid down towards the end of the time of the dinosaurs are unlikely to contain dinosaur remains because the region by then had become a shallow sea. So this may be the last or most recent large sauropod we will find in Southeast Asia.”
Nagatitan lived between 100 and 120 million years ago during the Early Cretaceous period. At this time, northeastern Thailand would have been arid to semi-arid—perfect for sauropods. These gentle giants used the surface area of their long necks and tails to shed heat and regulate their body temperature.
The bones were also found in what may have been a meandering river system, which would have been home to fish, crocodiles, and even freshwater sharks. Nagatitan would have lived with smaller plant-eating dinosaurs, including iguanodontians, some cousins of the Triceratops called ceratopsians, as well as large carnivores, and flying pterosaurs.
Interestingly, the team found that Nagatitan belongs to a narrower group of sauropods called Euhelopodidae, which have only been found in Asia. It is distinct from the other species within this group due to a combination of unique features on its spine, pelvis, and legs. Nagatitan is also the 14th dinosaur to be named in Thailand and a life-size reconstruction is now on display at the Thainosaur Museum at Asiatique in Bangkok.
“I’ve always been a dinosaur kid,” said Sethapanichsakul. “This study doesn’t just establish a new species but also fulfils a childhood promise of naming a dinosaur.”
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