Giant creatures appear in fiction as monsters willing to destroy entire cities. But in real life it is very different and no animal that walks the Earth currently has the size of a building or is capable of ending civilizations (except, perhaps, humans for that matter). But there once was a creature of colossal dimensions. After all, what is the largest land animal that ever lived?
Today, the largest animal that roams our planet is the African elephant, which can reach a height of four meters and 10 meters in length for a weight of up to seven tons. But he is far, far from the size that some dinosaurs were in the Jurassic era. These colossal creatures that have been extinct for thousands of years could grow to sizes that are difficult for us to grasp.
But if you bet that the biggest dinosaur that ever existed was the famous Tyrannosaurus Rex, I'm sorry to inform you that you are quite wrong. Despite being the best known, the T-Rex is far from being the largest dinosaur, but for a long time it was considered the largest carnivore, which helped its reputation as a “killing machine”. But even that title he lost, to Spinosaurus.
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Biggest animal to ever walk the Earth
The title of largest animal to ever walk the Earth (as far as we know) belongs to Patagotitan mayorum, a newly named dinosaur. This colossus, which lived over 102 million years ago, was 36 meters long and weighed over 69 tons, the same as 12 African elephants.
The previous title belonged to Dreadnoughtus, slightly smaller than Patagotitan. These giant dinosaurs are part of a “category” called titanosaurs.
Patagotitan was discovered by paleontologists José Luis Carbadillo and Diego Pol from the Museum of Paleontology Egidio Feruglio. “I, more than most, can relate to them and the sweat, effort, frustration and discomfort they experienced as they tried to collect bones that size and that amount from the ground to bring them safely to a museum.” Kenneth Lacovara, paleontologist who participated in the discovery of Dreadnoughtus.
Remembering that this is the largest terrestrial animal that ever existed, but in the water we have some much bigger ones, the blue whale, which can reach 32 meters in length and weigh 180 tons, being the largest creature on record.
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