Carnegie Museum Paleontologist Helps Uncover "Largest Land Animal That Ever Lived"

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- "This dinosaur here is Apatasaurus."

Paleontologist Matthew Lamanna points out a mounted dinosaur skeleton in the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

"For a long time, this dinosaur was thought to be the largest dinosaur, and actually the largest land animal that ever lived," he says.

He says Brachiosaurs were later discovered to be even larger. But he says that's before the Titanosaur.

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"Our new Titanosaur, Notocolossus, we estimate at between 82- and 92-feet long, and between 44 and 66 tons in live mass, and that's actually pretty awesome when you think about it," Lamanna says.

When the bones were discovered by Bernardo Gonzales Riga in his native Argentina, he invited his colleague from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History to join him.

"My role was to help describe the anatomy of this animal, figure out its evolutionary relationship, and try to understand how big it was, and how it might have lived," Lamanna says.

Titanosaurs were the largest land animals that ever existed.

Another Titanosaur has been assembled in a museum in New York City. Its 39-foot neck is so long, it pokes through the door of the exhibit hall. This species is similar to the find in Argentina.

Though these giants were vegetarians, they were not in much danger from the feared Tyrannosaurus Rex. They lived on two different continents, 20 million years apart. And the Titanosaur was six times as heavy as the T-Rex. That's no easy lunch.

The new discovery will be assembled in Argentina, its natural habitat.