60-Foot-Tall Creature Resembling Giraffe May Have Been Largest Dinosaur

Bones found in southeastern Oklahoma were from a 60-ton, 60-foot-tall giraffe-like creature that is among the biggest dinosaurs ever discovered, paleontologist Richard Cifelli of the University of Oklahoma said Wednesday. Cifelli called the creature, named sauroposeidon, or thunder lizard, “among the biggest or arguably the biggest” dinosaur ever.

The remains were found in 1994 in Atoka County but were not studied until recently. Cifelli said the sauroposeidon had a neck that was conservatively estimated at 40 feet long. The dinosaur was from the early Cretaceous period and was found in beds that are about 110 million years old, Cifelli said.

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Compiled by Times medical writer Thomas H. Maugh II