According to researchers publishing their enormous findings this week in the journal Scientific Reports, paleontologists in Thailand have identified a new species of a massive sauropod that may be the largest ever discovered in Southeast Asia. They also released an artistic illustration of what the sauropod might have looked like, and it looks so friendly. Just a chill dude who wants to eat some trees.
NPR reports that the dinosaur, named Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis, was nearly 90 feet long and weighed around 30 tons, the rough equivalent of several elephants stacked together into one enormous hulking vegetarian. It lived between 100 and 120 million years ago during the Early Cretaceous period, before the region that is now Thailand disappeared beneath a shallow sea.
Anime watchers and manga readers are probably familiar enough with at least one of the words that make up its name. “Naga” is a reference to the serpent-like beings of Southeast Asian folklore, while “Titan” is a reference to the dinosaur being friggin’ huge.
Researchers say the creature represents an evolutionary link to the truly absurd supersized sauropods that later emerged in places like South America and China. The fossils were found near a pond in Thailand’s Chaiyaphum province by a local nearly a decade ago. Excavations stalled after funding dried up. Work picked back up in 2024, eventually uncovering enough spine, pelvis, rib, and leg bones for researchers to estimate the animal’s scale. One front leg bone alone measured nearly six feet long.
Lead researcher Thitiwoot Sethapanichsakul, a Thai PhD student at University College London, described the find with the appropriate level of grandiosity, calling it “the last titan” of Thailand because the rock formation where it was discovered may be the youngest dinosaur-bearing formation in the country.
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