NEW YORK — A Long Island scientist has made what was literally a GIANT discovery, tracing back some of the oldest creatures to ever walk this earth.
A new analysis of fossils has revealed incredible discoveries about a particular type of dinosaur, called Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum.
The big news revealed: his neck was almost 50 feet long. For comparison, it is longer than a school bus and about six times the size of a giraffe’s neck.
Stony Brook paleontologist Dr Drew Moore spent the last year using CT technology to study three fossils found in China in the 1980s. Each fossil is a piece of the dinosaur’s neck vertebrae.
“I was able to produce this 3D model which allows us to better study his anatomy,” Moore told our sister network. NBC New York.
These vertebrae helped Moore and his colleagues paint the picture of a dinosaur with what is thought to be the longest neck of any living creature. An artist’s rendering shows what the dinosaur might have looked like as it roamed the earth 162 million years ago.
“They are the largest herbivores that have ever lived,” said Dr Moore. “Having a long neck allows them to plant themselves in one place and graze anywhere in that food envelope.”
Moore says her research will continue to understand the mysteries of these missing giants.
“Just fill your imagination with what it was like for this animal to live, breathe and move around in its environment,” he said.