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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Science
Robin McKie Science Editor

‘The sheer scale is extraordinary’: meet the titanosaur that dwarfs Dippy the diplodocus

A titanosaur standing in swamp grassland
An image of the titanosaur. Remains were uncovered in Patagonia in 2010. Photograph: Kostyantyn Ivanyshen/Getty Images/Stocktrek Images

It will be one of the largest exhibits to grace a British museum. In spring, the Natural History Museum in London will display the full cast of a skeleton of a titanosaur, a creature so vast it will have to be shoehorned into the 9-metre-high Waterhouse gallery.

One of the most massive creatures ever to have walked on Earth, Patagotitan mayorum was a 57-tonne behemoth that would have shaken the ground as it stomped over homelands which now form modern Patagonia. Its skeleton is 37 metres long, and 5 metres in height – significantly larger than the museum’s most famous dinosaur, Dippy the diplodocus, which used to loom over its main gallery.

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