Titanosaurs were the biggest land animals Earth’s ever seen − these plant-powered dinos combined reptile and mammal traits

The Conversation has an interesting article about Titanosaurs.  It’s written by Kristina Curry Rogers a Professor of Biology and Geology at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota.  She studies titanosaurs, which are a group of sauropod dinosaurs.

Titanosaurs originated by the Early Cretaceous Period, nearly 126 million years ago, at a time when many of the Earth’s landmasses were much closer together than they are today.

Over the next 75 million to 80 million years, the continents slowly separated, and titanosaurs drifted along with the changing formations, becoming distributed worldwide.

There were nearly 100 species of titanosaurs, making up more than 30% of known sauropod dinosaurs. They varied greatly in size. From the largest known sauropods ever discovered, including ArgentinosaurusPatagotitan and Futalognkosaurus, whose weight exceeded 60 tons (54.4 metric tons) and were bigger than a semitruck, to the smallest known sauropods, including RinconsaurusSaltasaurus and Magyarosaurus, which were around only 6 tons (5.4 metric tons) and about the size of an African elephant.

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