Biggest dinosaur ever found, according to BBC News 17 May 2014. All dinosaur hunters would like to dig up the biggest dinosaur ever found, but a team of palaeontologists from the Museum of Palaeontology Egidio Feruglio in Patagonia seem to be able to claim the record. The team, led by Jose Luis Carballido and Diego Pol, have excavated partial skeletons of seven individuals of a species of Titanosaur – a long necked sauropod. Altogether they found about 150 bones, all in “remarkable condition”. They used circumference and length of the largest femur (thigh bone) to estimate the size of the largest individual dinosaur, and calculated it would have weighed 77 tonnes making it “as heavy as 14 African elephants, and seven tonnes heavier than the previous record holder, Argentinosaurus”. The research team explained to BBC news: “Given the size of these bones, which surpass any of the previously known giant animals, the new dinosaur is the largest animal known that walked on Earth. Its length, from its head to the tip of its tail, was 40m (130ft). Standing with its neck up, it was about 20m (65ft) high – equal to a seven-storey building”.
Editorial Comment: If this is the biggest dinosaur ever found, we congratulate the Patagonian palaeontologists. This spectacular find should lead people to ask how could animals get to be so large. There are two answers – a better environment and a longer life. We know from observing some living large reptiles, such as crocodiles, that they have a different growth pattern than mammals. Reptiles grow fairly fast through their juvenile years, but unlike most mammals, they can keep growing throughout their adult life, albeit at a slower rate, provided they live in a uniformly mild climate, have enough food, and are not ill or stressed. Since these were the magnificent conditions present in the original very good world created by God in the beginning, it should not surprise us that animals and plants were also magnificent. We are also told in Genesis that people lived for very long periods prior to Noah’s Flood, so it is therefore reasonable to think that animals could also live for much longer than they do today. This was partly because of the good environment and because all creatures started with “very good” bodies – so no genetic defects at the start of life, plus all creatures started as vegetarian so you didn’t get eaten. The post fall / post flood world lacks most of these. Adding all these together for the reptile family, i.e. a good start, a good environment, growth throughout life and a long life due to no predators, makes possible some very large animals, which in this case were also catastrophically buried in a flood deposit. (Ref. Titanosaurs, Argentinosaurus, catastrophism, lifespan).
Evidence News vol. 14 No. 10
18 June 2014
Creation Research Australia