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RESEARCHERS STUDYING THE remains of an enormous dinosaur have given it an equally colossal name: Dreadnaughtus, or “fearing nothing”.
Scientists hope its unusually well-preserved bones will help reveal secrets about some of the largest animals ever to walk the earth. The four-legged beast, with a long neck and powerful 29-foot tail, stretched about 85 feet long – equal to more than seven Tyrannosaurus Rex – and weighed about 65 tons. That’s more than seven times the weight of even a plus-size male African elephant.
Pieces of the specimen were first discovered in Agentina’s southern Patagonia in 2005 by Kenneth Lacovara of Drexel University in Philadelphia and parts of it have been pulled together over a number of years so it can be properly studied.
He said he can’t claim that it was the most massive dinosaur known, because the remains of comparably sized beasts are too fragmentary to allow a direct comparison.
It is, however, the heaviest animal whose weight during life can be calculated directly with a standard technique that analyses bones of the upper limbs, he said. Its bones indicate it was still growing when it died.
In a study released by the journal Scientific Reports yesterday, Lacovara and colleagues describe the plant-eating behemoth’s bones as being 75 million to 77 million-years-old.
Since 2009, they have been creating computerised 3D reconstruction of the bones and have started making minaturised physical models of parts of the skeleton to investigate how the animal moved.
We’re getting a more complete picture of this giant animal than we have for any of the other big titanosaurs that are out there,” said paleontologist Kristi Curry Rogers of Macalester College in St Paul, Minnesota. The bounty of anatomical data should help scientists learn about variation in titanosaurs and their evolution, she said.
“This is pretty big news,” Rogers said.
Jeff Wilson of the University of Michigan called the finding “a really great specimen.”
Among the questions it can help scientists investigate, he said, is what kind of anatomical features were needed to let a dinosaur grow so huge.
Another huge dinosaur is currently being excavated in Patagonia and scientists hope they can determine whether the two beasts are closely related or whether each came by its huge size independently.
- With additional reporting by Michelle Hennessy.
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I must admit I am (the only) one of Ryanair’s very happy repeat customers
I’m with you there Jason, I’ve never had a problem with them and I’ve been using them for years.
Great Jim, you have just jinxed our next Ryanair flight/”experience”
not true as i always fly ryanair where i can. my favourite airline.
IM in your bracket also ,flew over 15 times and never had a problem ..finger crossed anyhow off London in April
I rarely have a complaint. But I will put you this question and this happened me last week.
Tomorrow morning at 6.30 there are 2 flights to Birmingham. One AL the other Ryanair. Both are pretty much the same price. Which one will you chose? No contest.
Ryanair of course, it’ll be on-time
A certain percent will never be pleased with anything so 93% is an amazing high result
They are doing well because there is no such thing as a “cheap” flight anymore
I just booked a return flight to Sweden for €100, it will cost me €40 just on petrol to drive to and from the airport. And probably €30 ish to park. Makes the flight look pretty cheap to me.
Big question is why he wants Aer Lingus
Maybe we should look west for the answer to that one.
trans atlantic flights i suspect although o leary has said he can only do low cost flying on short haul flights.
Could they throw a few bob my way so I can make a profit in the third quarter too?
People with the acumen and capacity of Michael O’Leary must get sooooooooo frustrated when they watch the way our country is run. It makes me laugh, bitterly
Good man Mr O’Leary, now if you’d be so kind as to hurry on and put those profits into a RyanAtlantic launch. New York for the weekend? Don’t mind if I do!
Hate flying with them. But Mick should be running this country.
Agree with your first point, disagree with your second one.
Bill Clinton for Taoiseach! :P
Everyone moans about them but cant turn down the cheap flights
Fair play
So approx 10 people on every aircraft say they’ll never fly with Ryanair again? That’s not good.
There isn’t a business anywhere that would not be delighted with those customer satisfaction numbers.
You’re clearly not used to reading Cust sat numbers if you think that. Very broad questions from which you would expect very high bungees – some of these numbers are not as good as you’d expect.
And a penny of that won’t go back into there filthy dirty horrid planes.
The youngest fleet in Europe you mean?
Micks a legend! love to hear his debates great talker but that’s not what this country needs in a leader!
And Sir des champs is going to win the gold cup…. Looks like Mick is in for a really good year!
Wow
have your say