A team of paleontologists has discovered the thigh bone of a giant dinosaur from southwestern France. Researchers have been excavating this site since 2010, and this new discovery has made them believe that more startling fossils of ancient dinosaurs might be present in the area.
After the discovery, researchers revealed that the thigh bone is more than two meters in length, and it belonged to a sauropod, herbivorous dinosaurs with long necks and tails. It should be noted that Hollywood director Steven Spielberg had featured these herbivorous dinosaurs in the movie Jurassic Park.
Scientists revealed that these gigantic dinosaurs were widespread on the earth during the Jurassic era, over 140 million years ago. Researchers also added that these dinosaurs might have weighed somewhere around 40 to 50 tonnes.
"This is a major discovery. I was especially amazed by the state of preservation of that femur. These are animals that probably weighed 40 to 50 tonnes," said Ronan Allain, a paleontologist at the National History Museum of Paris who is leading the excavation in the area, Reuters reports.
Allain also added that more than 7,500 fossils have been discovered in this region since the excavation that was started nine years ago.
A few weeks back, a team of researchers at the University of Zurich had discovered a new species of dinosaur in Switzerland. After the milestone discovery, researchers named it Notatesseraeraptor frickensis, and revealed that this ancient creature was a carnivores dinosaur that measured more than 8.5 feet in size. They also added that this deadly predator had roamed across Switzerland during the late Triassic period.
Another noted discovery this year happened in China, as researchers unearthed fossils of a dinosaur that weighed only 300 grams. Interestingly, this little dinosaur also had bat-like wings, and researchers believe that this tiny creature might have flown across the skies during the Jurassic period.
