{"id":3329,"date":"2021-12-02T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-12-02T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/?p=3329"},"modified":"2021-11-19T02:24:38","modified_gmt":"2021-11-19T02:24:38","slug":"supersaurus-may-have-been-the-longest-dinosaur-to-have-ever-lived","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/supersaurus-may-have-been-the-longest-dinosaur-to-have-ever-lived\/","title":{"rendered":"Supersaurus May Have Been the Longest Dinosaur to Have Ever Lived"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

An otherwise standard meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology<\/em><\/a> this year is making waves in science news due to one particular find. While it wouldn\u2019t be the first time this dinosaur was found\u2014its type species was discovered all the way back in 1972\u2014it\u2019s what they found about the dinosaur that\u2019s making heads turn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or, really, turn all the way from left to right, should you happen to look upon its entire body; the recently-disclosed findings of a team led by lead author Brian Curtice, from the Arizona Museum of Natural History, fixed a fossil mix-up and figured out what may have been the longest dinosaur on record. It\u2019s called the aptly-named Supersaurus<\/em>\u2014all 42 m (137 ft) of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The unearthed parts of the skeleton of Supersaurus<\/em>, with some restored from a previous mix-up and were previously believed to have been parts of other dinosaurs, were enough to give scientists an estimate of how long the animal must have been when it was alive. And, as it turns out, it was long\u2014up to 42 m (137 ft) long, to be precise. (Guevara\/Fossil Crates, 2021) <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The landmark findings by Curtice and team place this very long dinosaur to be about 39 m (128 ft) long at the minimum; it would have been so long that it would have given even the blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus<\/em>), the largest animal to have ever lived on record, a run for its money. And if a blue whale could run, it would most certainly have to do, as even the fastest human on Earth would have taken a full four (4) seconds to run from Supersaurus<\/em>\u2019 tail tip to its snout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Supersaurus<\/em> was found all the way back in 1972, by an intrepid dinosaur field worker named Jim Jensen. Jensen encountered a bonebed chock-full with bones of what appeared to be several sauropods. Jensen eventually published their findings in the journal Great Basin Naturalist<\/em><\/a>, where they separated the so-called fossil \u201cbone salad\u201d into three different dinosaurs: Supersaurus<\/em>, Ultrasauros<\/em> (not to be confused with the similarly-named Korean sauropod find Ultrasaurus<\/em>), and Dystylosaurus<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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An artistic rendering of what Supersaurus<\/em>\u2019 type species, S. vivianae<\/em>, would have looked like in real life, with a human placed on the side to scale. (Tamura, 2017) <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Curtice and team combed over the data and samples obtained from Jensen\u2019s earlier find, and now believes that what they believed to be pieces of Dystylosaurus<\/em> and Ultrasauros<\/em> were actually all just different pieces of Supersaurus<\/em> all along. The team even returned to the Dry Mesa Dinosaur Quarry, the site in Colorado where Jensen originally found the so-called \u201cbone salad\u201d of Supersaurus<\/em>, and started digging around for clues. The entire process leading up to the revelation of the findings took years to complete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Curtice and team also used other Supersaurus<\/em> findings to inform their study, including two specimens named \u201cJimbo\u201d and \u201cGoliath\u201d from Wyoming. Thing is, \u201cGoliath\u201d has yet to be recognized as a formal specimen of Supersaurus<\/em>; the recognition of \u201cGoliath\u201d would add even more credence to the findings of Curtice and team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The composite image above shows the scale of Supersaurus<\/em>. The images were taken from an exhibit on display at the North American Museum of Ancient Life back in 2005, which displayed what the long dinosaur may have looked like with a complete skeleton. (Tirreli, 2005) <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Said Curtice in a statement to Business Insider: “\u2019Jimbo\u2019 allowed us to inform our understanding of Supersaurus<\/em>, so when we went back to the Dry Mesa Dinosaur Quarry we were able to go, ‘Oh, that looks like that. And that looks like that.’ Now \u2018Goliath\u2019 validates \u2018Jimbo.\u2019”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Determining the lengths of both \u201cJimbo\u201d and \u201cGoliath\u201d allowed Curtice and team to get an average of the true length of Supersaurus<\/em> when compared to their partial skeleton, which they believed to have been erroneously identified by Jensen to be three different dinosaurs. Only after analyzing the three specimens did Curtice and team arrive at their 39-42 m (128-137 ft) estimate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Curtice continued: “What’s shocking to me is how close in length Goliath and Jimbo are. If you get three animals that are within a few feet of one another, now we know, ‘OK, that’s the average.'”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Supersaurus<\/em> specimen nicknamed \u201cJimbo\u201d is currently on display at the Wyoming Dinosaur Center. (Wikimedia Commons, 2014) <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

It should be noted, however, that while Supersaurus<\/em> may be the longest dinosaur found so far, it wouldn\u2019t have been the heaviest; that distinction belongs to Argentinosaurus<\/em>, which may have weighed up to 82 metric tons (90 tons), nearly twice the weight of Supersaurus<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Supersaurus<\/em> is among the growing list of long-necked dinosaurs called sauropods<\/em>, which includes Australia\u2019s Australotitan cooperensis<\/em> find from earlier this year<\/a>. Sauropods were a distinct branch of the dinosaur family tree whose roots lie deep into their history as animals; earlier sauropodomorph<\/em> forms included Mussaurus<\/em>, which made headlines earlier this year for the recently-unearthed evidence of herding within the species<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(For more dinosaur finds, check out how a study from this year may have revealed the origins of the famous spinosaurid <\/em>dinosaurs<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References<\/h2>\n\n\n\n