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Young World
Giants of the past
PHOTO: AP
THEY ROAMED THE EARTH: One of the largest dinosaurs.
Argentinean palaeontologists have recovered the remains of one of the largest dinosaurs that roamed the Earth. Judging from the neck, back and tailbones, the new find was probably 115 to 131 feet long. The new species has been named Puertasaurus reuili in honour of two fossil hunters who discovered the specimen: Pablo Puerta and Santiago Reuil. The Puertasaurus was a titanosaurus, a group of plant-eating sauropods. Fernando Novas, a palaeontologist, said that the only one bigger than the Puertasaurus was Argentinosaurus huinculensis, found in northwestern Patagonia. The find also increases the time frame of the titanosaurus. Earlier it was thought that these giants lived 90-100 million years ago and that the smaller titanosaurids dominated towards the end of the Cretaceous period (between 144-156 million years ago). But this shows that the group had both giants and dwarfs on almost every continent.
COMPLIED BY R. KRITHIKA
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