For a long time, scientists had doubts about what is the largest dinosaur in the world. It was believed that the largest predator is the titanosaurus. However, over time and the discoveries that have occurred, it turned out that this is not so. At the moment, the largest dinosaurs in the world are diplodocus. They moved to the second position the titanosaurs, gigantosaurs and tyrannosaurs, which until then were recognized as the largest.
Dinosaurs are unique creatures. Unfortunately, not one of them has survived to this day. We can learn about these amazing animals only from excavations. Translated from Greek, the word "dinosaur" means "creepy lizard." But the way it is: if you look closely, the lizard is a small copy of a huge dinosaur. They have similar skeleton, and scaly surface of the skin, and other structural features of the body. At the same time, dinosaurs really were terrible predators of enormous size. If such creatures appeared on Earth today, they would cause horror and panic in people.
Scientists have concluded that these gigantic animals inhabited the Earth 160 million years ago during the Mesozoic era. The extinction of dinosaurs is part of the “great extinction” when many different creatures disappeared on Earth: flying lizards, mollusks, marine reptiles and others.
As was said, absolutely all dinosaurs were of phenomenal size, which is difficult to imagine for modern people, but even among them there were record holders in terms of size.
The first - and the largest - dinosaur in the world, more precisely, its remains were found in 1815 in Stonesfield, in the county of Oxfordshire. According to scientists, the found fragments of the jaw and bones belonged to the huge predatory lizard Sauria. This was announced in 1824 at a conference held by the Royal Geological Society, a geology teacher from the University of Oxford.
Since 2007, it was believed that the largest dinosaur in the world is the futalognosaurus (lat. Futalognkosaurus). The remains of this monster were found almost two centuries after the discovery of the first dinosaur, in 2007, in Argentina, in the province of Neuquen. As suggested by paleontologists, it belongs to the group of titanosaurs. Presumably, he walked the Earth about 85 million years ago. Its name comes from two words: futa and lognko. Translated from the language of the Indians who inhabited the territory of Chile and Argentina, they mean "the main giant." According to scientists, the giant reached a length of up to 34 meters in length. Its weight is estimated at about 80 tons.
However, in 2010, a new species was introduced to the whole world - amphicelia (lat. Amphicoelias). This species belongs to the family Diplodocus. According to scientific data, today it is the largest dinosaur in the world. The finds of this creature were made in the Morrison formation, in the territory of the Bighorn River basin. Unfortunately, the only result of the findings - a fragment of the vertebra - collapsed shortly after the cleaning procedure and has not been preserved to date. Today, from the evidence of its existence there is only a drawing. It is not surprising that the size, and indeed the existence of this creature, is doubtful.
But if nevertheless amphicelia existed, then this is not only the largest dinosaur in the world, but also the largest of the known creatures. Its length was about 40-60 meters, and weight - up to 150 tons. According to these data, it appears that amphicelia is twice as long as the blue whale and is almost 10 meters longer than the futalnosaurus, which before it was considered the largest dinosaur.
Scientists do not stop there. To date, opinions have already been put forward that there were more massive dinosaurs. For example, the Bruhatkayosaurus, which inhabited the Earth during the Cretaceous.