This is the dinosaur with the longest neck

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Long-necked dinosaurs are some of the most striking prehistoric animals. And according to a new study, it would have held its head high even among sauropods.

Mamenchisaurus lived in what is now China during the Jurassic period, 162 million years ago. Now, an international research team has examined the only specimen of long-necked dinosaur found so far and, with the help of modern technology, has calculated how long the species’ neck actually existed.

“With a 15-meter neck, it looks like Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum may hold the record – at least until something longer is discovered,” researcher Andrew Moore said in a press release.

If you were to compare them to a modern animal, they look like six giraffe necks stacked on top of each other.

In fact, only parts of the dinosaur have been discovered, namely a piece of the skull, jaw and two cervical vertebrae. It’s so common with sauropods that the finds are limited, because the animals were so large that the chance of them being fully fossilized is slim.

Stiff necks

The authors of the article assume that a kind of long ribs, in contrast to those that protect the ribcage, extend up to the length of the neck. It was four meters long, a kind of extension of the cervical vertebrae. Previously, it was not certain what their actual function was, but researchers now believe that they may have contributed to the lengthening of necks, at the cost of making them less flexible.

Rigid necks, in turn, meant that the cervical vertebrae did not have to be so compressed, but could be filled with air-filled cavities to make them lighter, like the structure of today’s storks.

The researchers believe that the necks were relatively rigid, they extended more forward than upward, at an angle of 20-30 degrees.

used relatively less

“But even with this relatively slight tilt, the extreme length of the neck means the animal’s head could reach heights of 7.5 to 10 meters above ground level, allowing it to forage on treetops,” says paleontologist Paul Upchurch. at University College London. In a press release.

Lead author Andrew Moore of Stony Brook University He explains to The New York Times That few finds of Mamenchisaurus have ever been compared to its smaller relatives, Xinjiangtitan, was that in 2013 archaeologists found an entire neck.

– With these more complete, but smaller specimens, we can expand and give a fairly competent estimate of what Mamenchisaurus would have looked like, he tells the paper.

The study has been published In the Scientific Journal of Systematic Palaeontology.