A gigantic new dinosaur with a heart-shaped bone in its tail has been unveiled by scientists in time for Valentine’s Day.
The plant-eater was bigger than a three-storey house and lived in Africa
100 million years ago.
It was a member of the titanosaurs – the largest animals that ever walked the Earth.
The beast could have weighed up to 20 tons and been 30ft, towering over the tropical forest trees it fed on.
But the dinosaur’s most striking feature was the unique shape of the tail bones – that resembled the outline of a heart.
The US team joked: “It wore its heart on its tail.”
The discovery of its remarkably preserved remains also provides clues to how
ecosystems evolved on the African Continent during the Cretaceous period.
Named Mnyamawamtuka moyowamkia, a name derived from Swahili “animal of the Mtuka (with) a heart-shaped tail” its fossilised bones and teeth were unearthed in the East African Rift System of Tanzania.
Lead author Dr Eric Gorscak, of Midwestern University in Downers Grove, near Chicago, said: “Although titanosaurs became one of the most successful dinosaur groups before the mass extinction capping the Age of Dinosaurs, their early evolutionary history remains obscure.
“Mnyamawamtuka helps tell those beginnings, especially for their African-side of the story.”
Its name also refers to Mtuka after the riverbed where it was found and its unique tail bones.
Judy Skog, programme director in the National Science Foundation’s Division of Earth Sciences, which funded the research, said: “It’s also timely information about an animal with heart-shaped tail bones during this week of Valentine’s Day.”
The dinosaur described in Plos One is the third new titanosaur dug up in the area by the same team. It is one of the most complete of its kind.
Part of the skeleton was first discovered high in a cliff wall overlooking the seasonally dry riverbed in 2004. Annual excavations continued for the next five years.
Dr Gorscak said: “The wealth of information from the skeleton indicates it was distantly related to other known African titanosaurs, except for some interesting similarities with another dinosaur, Malawisaurus, from just across the Tanzania-
Malawi border.”
Titanosaurs are best known from Cretaceous rocks in South America.
But the new species discovered by his team in Tanzania, Egypt and other parts of the African Continent reveal a more complex picture of their evolution on the planet.
Co-author Dr Patrick O’Connor, professor of anatomy at Ohio University, said: “The discovery of dinosaurs such as Mnyamawamtuka and others we have recently discovered is like doing a four-dimensional connect the dots.
“Each new discovery adds a bit more detail to the picture of what ecosystems
on continental Africa were like during the Cretaceous, allowing us to assemble
a more holistic view of biotic change in the past.”
The five-year excavation process included field teams suspended by ropes and
large-scale mechanical excavators to recover one of the more complete specimens from this part of the sauropod dinosaur family tree.
Dr O’Connor said: “Without the dedication of several field teams, including some whose members donned climbing gear for the early excavations, the skeleton would have eroded away into the river during quite intense wet seasons in this part of the East African Rift System.”
Mnyamawamtuka and the other Tanzanian titanosaurs are not the only animals discovered by the researchers.
Remains of bizarre relatives of early crocodiles, the oldest evidence for insect farming from fossilised termite nests and tantalising clues about the early evolution of monkeys and apes have been revealed in recent years.
Such findings from the East African Rift provide a crucial glimpse into ancient ecosystems of Africa and provide the impetus for future work elsewhere on the continent.
The titanosaurs were a diverse group of sauropods that lived between 163 and
66 million years ago when the dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid strike.
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 here