Re: the biggest one

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <th81@umail.umd.edu>]

At 05:17 AM 6/25/99 -0400, Christopher Srnka wrote:

>B.Dol@skn.sc.philips.com wrote:
>> I know this question has been asked before, but my company has had a
>> systemcrash (Philips; let's make things better...) and I lost a
>> rather large part of my saved mails.
>> What was the name of that largest sauropod found? If I remember
>> correctly, the only bone which was found (?a vertebra of 2.5m tall? is
>> missing at this moment. I had been searching for half a year for that name
>> and now it's gone again. I hope someone can help me out.
>
>
>I believe you are referring to Argentinosaurus. Not sure of the spelling, but
>that's it, in a nutshell.

Actually, the specimen you are referring to is _Amphicoelias fragillimus_.
_Argentinosaurus_ is probably the largest sauropod whose remains are
currently known and accounted for: the _Amphicoelias fragillimus_ type
material was only breifly described, and it appears to have fallen apart
prior to every reaching the American Museum of Natural History (hence
"fragillimus", most fragile).

Also, to B.Dol@skn.sc.philips.com: all previous postings from the list are
available on the web at:
http://www.cmnh.org/fun/dinosaur-archive/index.html

With the search function working again, anyone can look for old postings on
topics of interest.

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Vertebrate Paleontologist     Webpage: http://www.geol.umd.edu
Dept. of Geology              Email:tholtz@geol.umd.edu
University of Maryland        Phone:301-405-4084
College Park, MD  20742       Fax:  301-314-9661