The femur of a giant dinosaur was found this week by French palaeontologists at an excavation site in southwest France where, since 2010, remains of some of the largest animals ever to live on land have been excavated.
The thigh bone of a giant dinosaur was found this week by French palaeontologists at an excavation site in southwestern France where remains of some of the largest animals that ever lived on land have been dug up since 2010.
The two-meter-long femur at the Angeac-Charente site is thought to have belonged to a sauropod, an herbivorous dinosaur with long necks and tails which were widespread in the late Jurassic era, over 140 million years ago.
“This is a major discovery,” Ronan Allain, a palaeontologist at the National History Museum of Paris told Reuters. “I was especially amazed by the state of preservation of that femur.”
“These are animals that probably weighed 40 to 50 tonnes.”
Allain said scientists at the site near the city of Cognac had found more than 7,500 fossils of more than 40 different species since 2010, making it one of the largest such finds in Europe.
Scientists believe that the bones are from a sauropod, which is the largest herbivorous dinosaur and first appeared in the late Triassic Period.
These reptiles were the largest of all dinosaurs and the largest land animals that have ever lived, they had a small head a long neck and a very long tail.
Scientists believe they would spend their time wallowing in shallow water that would help support their bodies.
The dinosaur bone was found covered in clay by volunteers from the National Museum of Natural History.