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'Amazing Dragon' Fossil Upends Origins of World's Largest Dinosaurs

Dinosaur facts change often. At this date, February 2019, Ledumahadi is the largest land animal ever discovered.

It lived over 200 million years ago and weighed over 26,000 pounds; that's the size of two African elephants.

The first bones were discovered in 2012 and were found sticking out of rocks in a large field. The excavation took many years.

The dinosaur is a fully grown adult and approximately fourteen-years-old.

It is believed to be a relative of Brontosaurus (Sauropod) and is an herbivore. Sauropod dinosaurs ate plants and walked on all fours.

This dinosaur evolved earlier than Brontosaurus, at the "Dawn" of the Sauropods. Its' name is an African word which means, "A giant thunderclap at dawn."

The Ledumahdi mafube's limbs were thick and heavy. The front limbs were more squatted and stooped and it would have been difficult to support its massive weight. The Sauropods, like Brontosaurus, had more slender bones in their limbs.

The Ledumahdi mafube is considered a "Transitional Dinosaur" because he came before the Sauropod dinosaurs discovered up to now. Researchers used data compiled from dinosaurs, animals, and reptiles to determine Ledumahdi mafube walked on all fours.

Earlier in 2018, Argentina announced the discovery of a gigantic dinosaur in their country which they named, "Ingentia Prima." At the time of their announcement, their dinosaur was the largest land animal ever discovered. South Africa's Ledumahadi mafube is a close relative to this Argentinian dinosaur.

Scientists feel this supports the idea all continents were assembled as Pangea (a super continent, made up of much of the world's land mass during the Early Jurassic period).

During this period, Africa's landscape would have been different from today. It would have been flatter with very little rainfall.

South Africa is also known for the discovery of some of the earliest and largest turtles and a tiny carnivore called, Megapnosaurus. (The Megapnosaurus were also discovered to live in North America.)

'Amazing Dragon' Fossil Upends Origins of World's Largest Dinosaurs

LONG-NECKED DINOSAURS WERE the largest animals that ever walked on land. Moving cathedrals of sinew and bone, these plant-eating giants—called sauropods—could stretch up to 120 feet from head to tail. At their heaviest, they weighed a staggering 70 tons. But a new study published today in Nature Communications takes a whack at sauropods' conventional origin story. A new Chinese species of sauropod named Lingwulong shenqi—the “amazing dragon of Lingwu”—directly implies that major groups of Earth's largest land animals arose some 15 million years earlier than previously thought.

New 'Rainbow' Dinosaur May Have Sparkled Like a Hummingbird

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Scientists discover ‘the holy grail of dinosaurs’ in Africa

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