The 20-meter lizard, found in Argentina in 2014, roamed a place called Patagonia about 140 million years ago today.
The largest dinosaur excavated in Argentina, which orbited Patagonia about 1140 million years ago at the beginning of the Cretaceous period, may be the oldest titanosaur ever, scientists said Sunday.
The 65-foot (20-meter) lizard, Ninjatitan Zapatai, was found in 2014 in the province of Nuquin in southwestern Argentina, La-Manza University said in its analysis.
“The main significance of this fossil, apart from the new species of Titan an Nosur, is that it is the oldest recorded for this group worldwide,” said Pablo Galina, a researcher at the Knesset Scientific Council, in a statement.
The Titonos rus were members of the Ropod group – long-tailed giant plant-eating lizards that may have been the largest animals to walk on Earth.
The statement said the new discovery, the titanosaurus, lived much earlier than previously thought – at the beginning of the Cretaceous period, which ended about 66 million years ago with the death of dinosaurs.
According to Galina, lead author of a study published in the Argentine scientific journal Amegina, fossils from 1 million million years ago are indeed very rare.
The animal was named after Argentine paleontologist Sebastian Ap Pestagua, nicknamed “El Ninja” and technician Roselio Zapata.
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