Host: The harsh semi-arid environment of Northern Patagonia is so sparsely populated. It would be easy to imagine that no human has or ever would pass through this barren collection of sands, sage brush and rock. Over the years though the herdsmen probably wondered up and down nearly every canyon here looking for astray or lost flock and that’s exactly how it went through a discovery of what some believed or hoped to be fossils of the largest dinosaurs yet found. This side, La Butrera as it’s called is in Rio Negro Province on the southern end of a dinosaur oval about 200 miles of Rincon de Los Sauces site and 150 or so from the egg field of Aca Mahuida. Rio Negro provincial paleontologist Rachel Rao and Florentino Amahino and museum curator Carlos Munoz have been part of the team working the sites since its discovery in 2001.
Access is very difficult through the steep walled narrow canyon with most of the fossils found near the top of the 130-foot cliffs. Difficult work under the best of conditions, the terrain surrounding this discovery requires additional time, effort and expense. The area is so hard to reach. A helicopter is being considered to transport the fossils to a road but even that may not be the solution since one of the pieces who’ve held this bone measures three meters by two and a half meters and is estimated to weight nearly six tons when wrapped in it’s protective filed jacket with plaster and wire. From the pieces the team had recovered so far experts are estimating the size of the creature to have been 150 to 160 feet long and 45 feet tall. If their estimates hold true this discovery which they’ve named the real Negro giant could be even larger than these bones of the argentinosaurus huinculensis discovered in the same region and displayed at the Carmen Funes Museum in Plaza Huincol.
Rachel Rao: What you see is a Sauropod femur head. It is very much alike to the ticanasaudriformis and diplodos deformis femur head. For the size of the femur head, we calculated the femur could be two meters and 15 centimeters long. This is a very large dinosaur. It is calculated that it measured between 40 and 50 meters long. He is not a robust dinosaur. He was a dinosaur with a slim figure. Up to date the argentinosaurus has been the largest found in Plaza Huincol. This maybe the largest dinosaur ever found. The studies we’re going to do might confirm this assumption. Meanwhile his size is a positive indication that it maybe the case. The measures of his cervical vertebrae are one meter and 20 centimeters long each one. It is calculated that the dinosaur neck was 20 meters long. The cervical vertebrae are narrow and measured 44 centimeters wide. Knowing this measure, it is reasonable to believe that his head was very small in comparison to the animal’s total length. This is very difficult to see isn’t it?
The cervical vertebrae were 14. Yes, it is very difficult to remove the materials as well as to transport it. It has been necessary to use lift and power materials as well. It has been necessary to use these cranes to carry some of the bundles to Tripoleto Museum and still we have these that are heavier than the others. They weigh approximately400 to 500 kilos and to transport this material we need to use a helicopter because the area is very inaccessible but the soil where the bones are soft. It is made up of some kind of sand stone. The difficult part is the transportation of this material to an appropriate place where it can be cleaned. What are your feelings when you see all of these? Well, knowing that these creatures inhabit this planet they make me think more about the real meaning of the human race on this planet. Creatures like the dinosaur lived here on our planet for 116 million years and they become extinct by natural disasters. On the other hand we the humans are causing irreparable damage to our planet so it induces me to take better care of this planet as it is our home after all.
Host: At this point in their study of dinosaurs. It’s impossible to factually determine if these Sauropods found in La Butrera may have ranged as far North as Aca Mahuida to deposit their eggs.
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