Argentinosaurus huinculensis AR-jen-TEEN-oh-SOR-us
"Argentine lizard"
You 1.8 m (5.9 ft) tall
Argentinosaurus 35 m (115 ft) long
20 people holding hands
- Length
- 35 m (115 ft) — About 35 m long, possibly 70–100 tonnes — among the largest land animals ever.
- Period
- Late Cretaceous (97–94 Mya)
- Place
- South America · Argentina
- Food
- Herbivore — Mid- and high-canopy plants — a vacuum cleaner for vegetation across South America.
Argentinosaurus was a titanosaur — one of the giant sauropods of the Late Cretaceous. We don’t have a complete skeleton, but the few vertebrae and limb bones found are so enormous that nearly any estimate places it among the largest animals ever to walk the Earth. A single back vertebra is taller than a person.
What we know
- Known from a partial skeleton — vertebrae, ribs, leg bones.
- A single vertebra weighs about 90 kg.
- Lived in South America alongside Mapusaurus, a giant carcharodontosaurid predator.
- Member of Titanosauria, the family that included most Late Cretaceous giant sauropods.
What we guess
- Total weight — estimates range from 70 to over 100 tonnes.
- Exact length — extrapolations from incomplete bones range from 30 to 40 m.
- How long it took to reach adult size — likely decades of fast growth.