This Is The Largest Dinosaur In History

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Mar 20, 9:41AM EDT

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This Is The Largest Dinosaur In History — © Fiberglass Dinosaurs are Messy Eaters (CC BY 2.0) by Taber Andrew Bain

The “age of dinosaurs”, officially known as the Mesozoic era, lasted from 252 million years ago until 66 million years ago. Scientists believe that period ended when an asteroid hit Earth. Expert observations about the period, particularly about the size and type of dinosaurs have changed over decades, particularly as new fossils are discovered. These discoveries are so frequent now that the Smithsonian publishes “The Top Ten Dinosaur Discoveries” each and every year.

Some of these discoveries have helped determine the largest dinosaur that ever lived. According to the BBC, the biggest dinosaur ever discovered was found in 2014. It reported that “Weighing in at 77 tonnes, it was as heavy as 14 African elephants, and seven tonnes heavier than the previous record-holder, Argentinosaurus.” Last year, the top spot was taken based on a discovery in Argentina. According to Phys.org, “A team of researchers with Naturales y Museo, Universidad de Zaragoza, and Universidad Nacional del Comahue has found evidence that suggests the remains of a dinosaur discovered in Argentina in 2012 may represent a creature that was the largest ever to walk the Earth.”

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Add to the confusion whether “size” should be determined by weight or length. The heaviest discovered weighs over 100 tons. The longest can be over 130 feet long.

Several pieces of analysis agree about the fact that the Titanosaur is the largest dinosaur. According to Britannica, it weighed 77 tons and was 140 feet long. Titanosaur lived about 100 million years ago, and has an official name. “Patagotitan mayorum may have been the world’s largest terrestrial animal of all time, based on size estimates made after considering a haul of fossilized bones attributed to the species.”

The candidate for the largest dinosaur could change again. According to Discovery, Mary Ann Mantell was the first person to find fossilized bones while she was on a walk in 1822. If men remain on the Earth as long as dinosaurs did, there is bound to be another discovery that adds to the long list of “largest dinosaurs”.

Click here to read These Are The 25 Oldest Things In The World

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.