Researchers unearth Southeast Asia's largest dinosaur

"Researchers have identified a new species of dinosaur in Thailand, the largest found in Southeast Asia. It would have been about 90 feet long and weighed some 30 tons, according to research published on Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports. That's the weight of more than four large African savanna elephants, or more than three times the weight of a Tyrannosaurus rex."

"The sauropod — an herbivore with a long neck and tail — comes from the late Early Cretaceous period, some 100 to 120 million years ago, Sethapanichsakul says, and falls somewhere in the "upper middle" range of the largest dinosaurs ever discovered. As big as this dinosaur was, sauropods were about to get a lot bigger. "It gives us an understanding of the potential kind of evolutionary trends that are beginning to occur" around this time, he says."

""In the Middle Cretaceous, we find dinosaurs in China, South America and probably Africa that are super giants. They are the biggest of the biggest," Sethapanichsakul says. The new discovery, he says, "essentially represents that kind of on-ramp towards that kind of supersizing." Larger sauropods have been found from later on in the Cretaceous period — one as heavy as 70 tons."

"Sethapanichsakul and his colleagues named it Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis. "Naga comes from the mythological Naga [serpent creature] that is worshipped in Southeast Asia. Titan just [refers to] size," he says. Chaiyaphumensis comes from Chaiyaphum — the province where the dinosaur was found. The fossils were first discovered by a local resident in 2016 and initial excavation happened between then and 2019, but then funding dried up. When Sethapanichsakul's team got new funding, the excavation restarted in 2024."

A new dinosaur species from Thailand has been identified as a sauropod, an herbivore with a long neck and tail. The dinosaur is estimated to have been about 90 feet long and weighed around 30 tons, making it the largest dinosaur found in Southeast Asia. The fossils date to the late Early Cretaceous period, roughly 100 to 120 million years ago. The discovery is positioned as an “on-ramp” toward later evolutionary trends in which sauropods became much larger, including later Cretaceous specimens estimated up to about 70 tons. The species was named Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis, with “Naga” referencing a Southeast Asian mythological serpent and “chaiyaphumensis” referencing the Thai province where it was found.

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