🦖 Dinosaurs🦕 SauropodomorphCretaceousLesser known
Dreadnoughtus
Dreadnoughtus schrani
Thanks to its exceptionally complete skeleton, Dreadnoughtus is a key to research on the largest land animals that ever lived.
Image: Gunnar Bivens · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
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Characteristics
- Scientific name
- Dreadnoughtus schrani
- Period
- Late Cretaceous (Campanian–Maastrichtian)
- Lived
- 76–70 Ma (76 million years ago)
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Habitat
- Plains, Forest
- Length (estimate)
- 26 m
- Mass (estimate)
- 49,000 kg
- Discovered/described
- 2005 · Kenneth Lacovara
Description
Dreadnoughtus was a titanosaur about 26 metres long, and the type specimen was not even fully grown. No other giant sauropod is known from so much of its skeleton, which allows better estimates of its build and weight. The original weight estimate of about 49 tonnes has, however, been questioned using later methods.
Habitat
Temperate river landscapes in southern Patagonia.
Fossil sites
Cerro Fortaleza, Santa Cruz
Cerro Fortaleza Formation
Cultural profile: Argentina →
Contemporaries in the database
Sources: Dreadnoughtus