Weighing as much as a dozen African elephants and clad in armour-plated skin, Dreadnoughtus - meaning "fears nothing" - would have lived up to its name.
The supermassive dinosaur, whose almost complete skeleton was found in southern Patagonia, Argentina, breaks all records for the largest animal that ever walked the Earth.
It belonged to the family of Titanosaurs that were famous for their size and the bony plates that protected their bodies like a suit of armour.
Dreadnoughtus schrani, which inhabited a temperate forest at the southern tip of South America 77 million years ago, measured 85 feet from its head to tail and tipped the scales at 65 tons.
Like other "sauropod" dinosaurs of its type, it stood on four legs and had a long neck and tail, which may have been used in self defence.
Dr Kenneth Lacovara, from Drexel University in Philadelphia, US, who led the discovery team, said: "Dreadnoughtus schrani was astoundingly huge. It weighed as much as a dozen African elephants or more than seven T. rex.
"Shockingly, skeletal evidence shows that when this 65-ton specimen died, it was not yet full grown. It is by far the best example we have of any of the most giant creatures to ever walk the planet."
Explaining how he chose the dinosaur's name, he added: "With a body the size of a house, the weight of a herd of elephants, and a weaponised tail, Dreadnoughtus would have feared nothing.
"That evokes to me a class of turn-of-the-last century battleships called the dreadnoughts, which were huge, thickly clad and virtually impervious."
To grow so large, Dreadnoughtus would have had to consume colossal quantities of vegetation.
"Imagine a life-long obsession with eating," said Dr Lacovara said. "Every day is about taking in enough calories to nourish this house-sized body. I imagine their day consists largely of standing in one place.
"You have this 37-foot-long neck balanced by a 30-foot-long tail in the back. Without moving your legs, you have access to a giant feeding envelope of trees and fern leaves. You spend an hour or so clearing out this patch that has thousands of calories in it, and then you take three steps over to the right and spend the next hour clearing out that patch."
The skeleton contained 70% of the dinosaur's bones, excluding the skull, and included neck vertebrae over a yard wide, numerous ribs, a six-foot tall thigh bone, and a small section of jaw.
Bones from another, smaller Dreadnoughtus with a less-complete skeleton were also unearthed at the site.
Both animals are thought to have been buried quickly after a river burst its banks, turning the ground into "something like quicksand", said Dr Lacovara.
A description of Dreadnoughtus schrani appears in the journal Scientific Reports, published by the Nature group.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article