Monday, Nov. 15, 1999
A Dinosaur with Altitude
If you thought all the really big dinosaurs had long since been found, think again. Paleontologists digging in Oklahoma have uncovered bones from the tallest dinosaur ever. Judging from its 5-ft.-long vertebrae, scientists estimate that the monster's neck alone stretched an incredible 40 ft.
Fortunately for other dinos that walked the earth in about 110 million years B.C., this giant was a vegetarian and probably snacked on pine needles and ferns. It was similar in size and overall shape to the beast most people still think of--despite a highly unpopular renaming a few years ago--as Brontosaurus. The University of Oklahoma paleontologists who found the new species have named it, aptly, Sauroposeidon, after the Greek sea god. Poseidon was also in charge of earthquakes, and it's clear that every step this gargantuan creature took must have been literally seismic.