Starting in about two weeks, the Museum of Natural History will unveil a dinosaur that’s even bigger than the massive blue whale in its oceans exhibit. The Titanosaur, a dinosaur that was just discovered in Argentina, is 122 feet long, and just barely fits into its very own hall on the fourth floor at the museum.
To even fit in the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Orientation Center, a spacious hall on the museum’s fourth floor, Norell will have to remove a model of a juvenile Barosaurus that’s been there since 1996. But even with the hall to itself, the dinosaur doesn’t exactly fit: Its back will nearly graze the gallery’s 19-foot-high ceilings, and its head and neck will protrude through the entryway doors into the adjoining elevator banks.
It’s so new it hasn’t been formally named yet.
Paleontologists suggest this dinosaur, a giant herbivore that belongs to a group known as titanosaurs, weighed in at around 70 tons. The species lived in the forests of today’s Patagonia about 100 to 95 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous period, and is one of the largest dinosaurs ever discovered.
The exhibit opens on January 15.
The museum recently made a video to preview it:
ABC News covered the discovery last year:
“The species lived in the forests of today’s Patagonia about 100 to 95 million years ago”
if the earth is only 6K yrs old, how could this be true?
such senses of humour these “scientists” have!
is this an ironic comment? the earth is more than 6,000 years old…
This is just a ploy to distract us from hating their extension. Crafty “scientists”!
The Museum should (and, given the way things go these days, probably will) sell the naming rights to the Rich Person (real estate developer, banker, you know: one of those people who brings great value to the community) willing to pay the highest “donation”.
They get buildings, hallways, doorways, and benches named in monument to them and their wealth. Why not a dinosaur? Especially a really, really BIG dinosaur?