A nearly intact skeleton of Titanosaurus

[hpb1956@aol.com]

There's a report on SPIEGEL ONLINE dated 27. Dezember 2005, 11:56
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/erde/0,1518,392359,00.html

Does anybody knows more about this find?

Cheers


Heinz Peter Bredow



Argentina

Argentine researchers discover an intact dinosaur skeleton

Argentine researchers have discovered a nearly intact skeleton of a 
young
Titanosaurus. The discovery of the 71 million year old skeleton is a 
sensation,
first of all because the remains seem to be practically unchanged. It 
seems
to be a juvenile.

"What's so extraordinarily about this discovery, is that the remains 
lay as if the
animal has fallen down or has lain down and has not been moved after 
this any
more", local media quoted the geologist and paleontologist Bernardo 
Gonzalez Riga.

For example a foot with all toes and claws remained in an 
extraordinarily good
condition. Up to now only one or two Titanosaurs have been found 
world-wide
with complete foot bones, Gonzalez said further. Also apart from that 
the skeleton
is nearly complete, only head and neck were lacking. Gonzalez said, 
probably they
were washed away as time went by.

Probably the Titanosaur was approximately ten meters long and weighed 
about
twelve tons, therefore, it seems to be a juvenile. The species which 
lived in the
Cretaceous period and fed on plants became up to 35 meters long as 
adult.

The skeleton was found when the German Ölfirma Wintershall Energy 
searched in
the province Neuquen for oil. The area in Patagonia in the south of the 
country
is considered to be the Eldorado for palaeontologists. In the region 
numerous remains
of dinosaurs were found.