Scientists in Spain have found the fossilized remains of one of the largest animals ever to walk the Earth, a gargantuan plant-eating dinosaur weighing as much as seven elephants.
Turiasaurus riodevensis, named for the region and village in Spain where it was found, lived about 145 million years ago and was a sauropod, a dinosaur with a long neck, long tail and massive body that walked on four stout legs.
An artist's impression of the giant European dinosaur Turiasaurus Riodevensis
The dinosaur came from a time right at the boundary between the latter two periods of the Age of Dinosaurs, the Jurassic and Cretaceous. Relatively little has been known about European dinosaurs dating from then.
Scientists believe Turiasaurus spent its days munching plants in an area close to the shoreline of the ancient Tethys Sea, forerunner of the Mediterranean Sea.
The first bones were found in an abandoned wheat field near the village of Riodeva in northeastern Spain in May 2003.
Turiasaurus weighed between 40 and 48 metric tonnes and was between 36 and 38 metres long. By comparison, Tyrannosaurus rex was about 14 metres and six tonnes. Turiasaurus rivals the size of the largest known dinosaurs, all sauropods, and its remains were more complete than those of many of them.
Other fossils found at the site indicated Turiasaurus lived alongside other dinosaurs, including biped meat eaters, other sauropods and plant eaters similar to the armored Stegosaurus, as well as turtles and crocodile-like reptiles.