If you wish to quote from any part of this story, please credit American Association For The Advancement Of Science as the original source. Canada Researchers have discovered a colossal new species of dinosaur in Egypt, one of the heaviest creatures to have walked the Earth. Its name, Paralititan, means tidal giant. Its humerus, the bone that connected its shoulder to its elbow, is about the size of the average Canadian woman. Longer than two school buses placed end to end, it likely weighed 60 to 70 tonnes.
Experts say the find is significant because very little is known about African dinosaurs.
The period in which Paralititan lived is still a mystery to paleontologists. Very few specimens have been found dating to between 85 million and 100 million years ago, in the middle of the Cretaceous period when dinosaurs were dominant. This particular specimen appears to have died 94 million years ago while munching on leaves in a tidal mangrove swamp that probably looked much like the Florida Everglades of today. The dinosaur was dug up last year by a group of American graduate students who obtained funding for their seven-week expedition from a film company that sent a crew along to make a documentary. They knew they had made a big discovery when they realized that what they had thought were two distinct fossils at opposite ends of the Sahara desert quarry were actually one giant arm bone.