THE Egyptian Sahara was once a lush paradise for dinosaurs. Palaeontologists
have uncovered the partial skeleton of a giant plant-eater that lived in the
area 94 million years ago, when it was a coastal mangrove.
Paralititan stromeri, or 鈥渢idal giant鈥�, weighed in at 70 tonnes and was
around 30 metres long. The only dinosaur larger was argentinosaurus, says Josh
Smith of the University of Pennsylvania. It鈥檚 also the first dinosaur ever found
in a saltwater mangrove.
Because so many bones were found together, scientists believe the animal
walked to the spot where it died, and was not simply washed up by the tide
(Science, vol 292, p 1704).
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