The largest dinosaur finally gets a name

At over 37 metres (122 feet) long, and weighing in at nearly 63 tonnes — more than 10 adult African elephants — the largest dinosaur ever to have walked the Earth has been named by scientists. The plant-eating beast first made headlines back in 2014, when a rancher from Patagonia in Argentina discovered a fossil bone. But despite its fame, the dinosaur did not have an official scientific name until now, when a report published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. named it Patagotitan mayorum. Patagotitan lived about 100 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period, and is considered a titanosaur, a class of long-necked herbivores, with long tails that walked on four legs, which vary in size with the smallest species weighing as much as an adult elephant and the largest ones weighing more than 55 tonnes. The discovery of Patagotitan has given scientists a clearer picture of how titanosaurs evolved in terms of their body mass, and the study has revealed that most of the giant titanosaurs discovered in Patagonia belonged to a single lineage. A full scale cast of the giant is on display at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. To find out check out The Paleontological Museum Egidio Feruglio.