Study reveals how Titanosaurs, earth’s biggest land animals, survived so long Premium

The secret to titanosaurs’ remarkable biological success may be how they merged the best of both reptile and mammal characteristics to form a unique way of life.

You’re probably familiar with classic sauropod dinosaurs – the four-legged herbivores famous for their long necks and tails. Animals such as Brachiosaurus, Apatosaurus and Diplodocus have been standard fixtures in science museums since the 1800s.

With their small brains and enormous bodies, these creatures have long been the poster children for animals destined to go extinct. But recent discoveries have completely rewritten the doomed sauropod narrative.

I study a lesser known group of sauropod dinosaurs – the Titanosauria, or “titanic reptiles.” Instead of going extinct, titanosaurs flourished long after their more famous cousins vanished. Not only were they large and in charge on all seven continents, they held their own amid the newly evolved duck-billed and horned dinosaurs, until an asteroid struck Earth and ended the age of dinosaurs.

The secret to titanosaurs’ remarkable biological success may be how they merged the best of both reptile and mammal characteristics to form a unique way of life.

Titanosaurs originated by the Early Cretaceous Period, nearly 126 million years ago, at a time when many of the Earth’s landmasses were much closer together than they are today.

Over the next 75 million to 80 million years, the continents slowly separated, and titanosaurs drifted along with the changing formations, becoming distributed worldwide.

There were nearly 100 species of titanosaurs, making up more than 30% of known sauropod dinosaurs. They varied greatly in size. From the largest known sauropods ever discovered, including Argentinosaurus, Patagotitan and Futalognkosaurus, whose weight exceeded 60 tons (54.4 metric tons) and were bigger than a semitruck, to the smallest known sauropods, including Rinconsaurus, Saltasaurus and Magyarosaurus, which were around only 6 tons (5.4 metric tons) and about the size of an African elephant.