Mammoth dinosaur cast goes on display in NY
A cast of one of the largest dinosaurs ever discovered, a mammoth 122-foot (37.2 meter) titanosaur went on display for the first time in New York on Thursday.
It comes from a species of dinosaur so new that its scientific name has not yet been formally released, said the paleontologists who discovered it in 2014, in Argentina's Patagonia region.
The remains were excavated in the desert near La Flecha, 135 miles (216 kilometers) west of Trelew, by a team from the Museum of Paleontology Egidio Feruglio.
The colossal exhibit unveiled at the American Museum of Natural History is so long that the creature's neck and head extend out of the room into a lobby close to the elevators.
The animal, whom researchers believe to have been a young adult but whose sex is not known, would have weighed 70 tons, or as much as 10 African elephants, the museum said.
The new species lived in the forests of modern-day Patagonia about 100 to 95 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous period.
The museum said it is one of the largest dinosaurs ever discovered.
One femur found at the site will be among five original fossils on temporary view with the titanosaur in New York.
© 2016 AFP
