Last month the American Museum of Natural History in New
York (think Night at the Museum) unveiled its newest exhibit: the skeleton of
what may be the largest dinosaur ever discovered. Titanosaur (It doesn’t even
have a scientific name yet) was 122 feet long – four times the length of the
museum’s famous blue whale. According to the museum’s catalog, there should be a
vertibra in their possession belonging to an even bigger sauropod. The five-foot-long
section of spine was part of a massive shipment donated by the paleontologist
Edward Drinker Cope at the time of his death. The vertibra is listed on the
shipping manifest. The museum has a description but no bone. For over a hundred
years, folk have been searching for solid evidence that the largest known
creature – Amphicoelias fragillimus – ever existed. It seems more than likely
to me that Cope simply made it up. After all, it was too big to lose.
No comments:
Post a Comment