Titanosaurs: 8 of the World's Biggest Dinosaurs

One of the largest titanosaurs, possibly the largest according to some sources, was Dreadnoughtus. It had a total length of roughly 26 meters (about 85 feet) and an estimated mass of 59 metric tons (about 65 tons). Dreadnoughtus is known from rock deposits of southern Patagonia, Argentina, that date to about 77 million years ago. There is only one known species, D. schrani.

Patagotitan mayorum may have been the world’s largest terrestrial animal of all time, based on size estimates made after considering a haul of fossilized bones attributed to the species. The collection included a femur (thighbone) that measured 2.4 meters (8 feet) from end to end. Because of its huge size, Patagotitan was simply known as the Titanosaur between its initial discovery in 2014 and its formal naming in August 2017. It is thought to have weighed approximately 70 metric tons (about 77 tons) and measured 37.2 meters (122 feet) long, but some researchers believe that these are overestimates. The species lived 100 million to 95 million years ago.

Argentinosaurus has been known to science since 1993. Evidence of it was originally discovered in 1987, when a fossil the size of a fully grown human being was unearthed on a ranch in Argentina. The rancher thought the fossil specimen was a large chunk of petrified wood, and it wasn’t until 1993 that it was reclassified as a single vertebra belonging to a new species of sauropod. Although no complete skeletons of Argentinosaurus have been found, estimates of the dinosaur’s length (based on projections of the size of the rest of the body using existing fossils) range from 37 to 40 meters (about 121 to 131 feet), and it was thought to have weighed 90 to 100 metric tons (99 to 110 tons). By these measures, Argentinosaurus was the largest dinosaur, as well as the largest land animal, ever known.

Saltasaurus is a titanosaur named for the city of Salta in northern Argentina, where it was discovered. The species was first described in 1980, and it is considered small compared with other titanosaur species, measuring only 12.2 to 12.8 meters (about 40 to 42 feet) long and weighing slightly under 7 metric tons (about 7.7 tons). While several other titanosaurs relied on their sheer size to dissuade predators from attacking them, an analysis of a collection of incomplete fossil skeletons of Saltasaurus suggests that the species employed a different defensive strategy. The titanosaur’s body was covered with osteoderms, or bony armored plates, which made it more difficult for the teeth of a predator to penetrate its flesh.

A juvenile Rapetosaurus krausei was discovered by researchers excavating a hillside in northern Madagascar in 1998. The dig revealed one of the most-complete titanosaur skeletons discovered thus far. In addition, a skull of a juvenile and a skull of an adult were found at the site. Although the juvenile skeleton was only 8 meters (about 26 feet) in length and an adult skeleton was not present, paleontologists estimated that fully grown members of this species could have been as large as 15 meters (about 49 feet) long. The bones of Rapetosaurus have been dated to roughly 70 million years ago, a mere 4 million years before one of the greatest mass extinctions in Earth’s history, the K-T extinction.

In 1953 a partial vertebral column and a rib were excavated from the Presidente Prudente Formation in suburban Sao Paulo. These fossils sat in a museum for more than 60 years before Brazilian researchers had the staff and resources to be able to study them and declare them as belonging to a new titanosaur species, the largest of Brazil’s nine known titanosaur species, in 2016. The sizes of these fossils suggest that a fully grown Austroposeidon magnificus measured 25 meters (82 feet) long. The age of the sandstone and mudstone layers containing the fossils suggest that Austroposeidon magnificus lived between 84 million and 66 million years ago.

Paralititan stromeri was first described in 2001 after earlier excavations at a site roughly 300 km (about 186 miles) southwest of Cairo, Egypt, had revealed a massive 1.69-meter- (5.5-foot-) long femur (thighbone) and a collection of fragmented shoulder blades, front leg bones, teeth, and vertebrae. The discovery of such a large femur allowed many paleontologists to assert that Paralititan rivaled Argentinosaurus in size. Estimates of the titanosaur’s length and weight vary: length estimates range from 25 to 30.5 meters (82 to 100 feet), and weight estimates range from 60 to 75 metric tons (about 66 to 83 tons). Paralititan plied the mangrove swamps of the middle of the Cretaceous Period some 94 million years ago.

The Tanzanian titanosaur, Shingopana songwensis, was first described in August 2017. The collection of fossils—made up of vertebrae, ribs, bone from one of its forelegs, and a fragmented lower jaw and pubis bone—was found in 2002 in the Galula Formation of Africa’s Great Rift Valley, which is located in southwestern Tanzania. The rocks within which the fossils were found dated to 100 million to 70 million years ago. Shingopana is the Swahili word for “wide neck,” and it was the titanosaur’s inflated cervical vertebrae that inspired the name of the species. Only 8 meters (about 26 feet) long and weighing an estimated 5 metric tons (about 5.5 tons), S. songwensis was among the smallest of the titanosaurs.