"Some had necks that mirrored their tails in length, while others had necks that look impossibly long for their bodies, and others had stubbier, more robust necks. The last was Alamosaurus, which lived in the southwestern United States just before the asteroid strike 66 million years ago that doomed the dinosaurs, aside from their bird descendants. The first species to reach superlative size was Xinjiangtitan, which lived about 165 million years ago in China. Sauropods arose around 200 million years ago. The study focused upon sauropod lineages that produced species exceeding the size of any other land animals on record, with that benchmark set by the biggest mammals such as elephant relatives Palaeoloxodon and Mammut and rhino relative Paraceratherium, in the range of 17-25 metric tons.ĭ'Emic identified 45 species from 36 sauropod lineages that beat those. Sauropods were topped in size only by certain filter-feeding whales, with today's blue whale the biggest at roughly up to 150 metric tons.īased on limb bone dimensions, D'Emic calculated body mass estimates for about 190 of the approximately 250 known sauropod species. They were followed by several tied at around 48 metric tons: Notocolossus, Dreadnoughtus and Patagotitan - all from Argentina - as well as Yunmenglong, from central China, and Australotitan, from Australia. Next were Brachiosaurus, at 63 metric tons, and Barosaurus, at 60 metric tons, both living approximately 150 million years ago in western North America. The heavyweight champion was Argentinosaurus, which lived about 95 million years ago in - you guessed it - Argentina, and weighed about 76 metric tons.
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