Scientists uncover giant dinosaur femur in France

Scientists uncover giant dinosaur femur in France

PanARMENIAN.Net - Scientists in south-western France have uncovered a giant dinosaur thigh bone at an excavation site that has been yielding fossils for nearly a decade, the BBC reports.

Two metres (6.6ft) long, the femur found at Angeac is thought to have belonged to a sauropod, a plant-eating dinosaur with a long neck and tail.

Sauropods, common in the late Jurassic era, were among the largest land animals that ever existed.

Palaeontologists say they are amazed at the state of preservation of the bone.

"We can see the insertions of muscles and tendons, and scars," Ronan Allain of the National History Museum of Paris told Le Parisien newspaper.

"This is rare for big pieces which tend to collapse in on themselves and fragment."

Such dinosaurs, which lived more than 140m years ago, would have weighed 40 to 50 tonnes, Allain told Reuters news agency.

A sauropod thigh bone found at the same site in 2010 was 2.2m long and weighed 500 kilos, according to local paper La Charente Libre.

 Top stories
Authorities said a total of 192 Azerbaijani troops were killed and 511 were wounded during Azerbaijan’s offensive.
In 2023, the Azerbaijani government will increase the country’s defense budget by more than 1.1 billion manats ($650 million).
The bill, published on Monday, is designed to "eliminate the shortcomings of an unreasonably broad interpretation of the key concept of "compatriot".
The earthquake caused a temporary blackout, damaged many buildings and closed a number of rural roads.
Partner news
---