The Largest Animal to Ever Walk the Earth

Summary of "Dreadnoughtus: Gigantic, exceptionally complete sauropod dinosaur" by Drexel University

Last week, Drexel University reported the discovery of a new species of titanosaurian sauropod dinosaur, named Dreadnoughtus schrani. This is the most complete skeleton of a titanosaur ever found, allowing it's weight to be accurately calculated. At 65 tons, this was the heaviest land animal to ever exist, as far as we know. Several species of titanosaur, such as Argentinosaurus, have been estimated to be larger, but none can be calculated as accurately. The weight of quadrupedal animals is reliant on measurements taken from the femur and humerus, and most titanosaur fossils found before were extremely fragmentary and did not contain any of these fossils. The Dreadnoughtus skeleton, however, contained almost 70% of the bones in its body, including the necessary leg bones. The completeness of this fossil will allow new insights as to how these massive creatures moved and functioned (Drexel University, 2014).

In my opinion, this is one of the most important fossil discoveries in the past few years. New species are always important and fossils this complete are very rare. As stated in the article and summary, the weight of the animal can be measured very accurately, which not only gives us a good estimate for the weight of the species, but also for similar animals. Most importantly, I think, is that the completeness of this skeleton allows scientists to make a very accurate model of the animal. This will lead to more discoveries into how sauropods and titanosaurs were able to move such massive bodies, solving the mysteries of the largest and most wondrous creatures to ever exist.

Drexel University. (2014, September 4). Dreadnoughtus: Gigantic, exceptionally complete sauropod dinosaur. ScienceDaily. Retrieved September 10, 2014 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140904093007.htm