'Biggest dinosaur ever' discovered(2)

Argentine paleontologist Pablo Gallina casts a shadow on a projector screen showing an illustration by Jorge Antonio Gonzalez of newly identified South American dinosaur Leinkupal laticauda in Buenos Aires May 15, 2014. [Photo/Agencies]

Some sauropods like Argentinosaurus, which also lived inArgentina but 50 million years later, weighed up to 90 tons andmeasured more than 100 feet (30 meters) long. The last sauropodslived until the very end of the age of dinosaurs, about 65million years ago.

Diplodocids lived in North America, Europe and Africa duringthe Jurassic period, the middle of the three acts of the age ofdinosaurs, Gallina said. Until now, they were thought to have gone extinct by the end of the Jurassic, about 145 million yearsago.

But Leinkupal shows that this family lived on at least intothe earliest stages of the Cretaceous period.

Diplodocids were more slender than some other families ofsauropods. Their back legs were longer than their front legs,and they boasted extremely long necks and whip-like tails thatthey may have used to fend off predators.

At the time, North America was completely isolated fromSouth America, and the Atlantic Ocean was beginning to open and separate South America from Africa.

Leinkupal lived in a semiarid environment south of a largedesert, the researchers said. Its incomplete remains were foundin Patagonia - a region renowned for its dinosaur finds - in2010 and 2012 in Argentina's Neuquen province, they added.