A news article about the discovery of the largest-known sauropod, Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis, in Thailand, along with its reconstruction and insights into its size, feeding preferences, and the Cretaceous period it lived in.
Artist reconstruction of the Cretaceous Period sauropod dinosaur Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis, whose fossils were unearthed in Thailand, seen in this illustration on May 14, 2026. Along a meandering river in a warm and arid region that is now Thailand roughly 113 million years ago, a plant-eating behemoth almost 27m long browsed on the treetops without much fear of predators due to its sheer size.
This was Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis, the largest-known sauropod, whose bones were first spotted by a villager in Thailand's northeastern province of Chaiyaphum. Scientists over a period of years then dug up spine, rib, pelvis and leg bones including a front leg bone - the humerus - measuring 1.78m long. Based on the dimensions of its humerus and femur, the corresponding hind leg bone, the researchers estimated Nagatitan's body mass at 25 to 28 tons.
Its head and teeth were not among the fossils recovered, but the researchers have a good idea of its feeding preferences based on other sauropods. Nagatitan was probably a bulk browser that focused on consuming high volumes of vegetation that required little to no chewing such as conifers and possibly seed ferns. At that size, it was dwarfed by Nagatitan. At full size, Nagatitan likely had very little to fear in terms of predation.
Predators probably avoided attacking healthy adults of any large sauropod species because of the danger of being squashed. But they may have targeted old or sick adults or vulnerable babies. Indeed, sauropods are known to have grown very quickly after hatching, and this probably relates to the dangers of predation. The sooner sauropods could become large, the safer they were because they would have been more difficult to tackle.
Sauropods included the largest land animals in Earth's history. Nagatitan was huge by any standard, but not on the scale of some South American sauropods such as Argentinosaurus and Patagotitan that topped 30m long. Nagatitan's name references Naga, a serpent-like being in some Asian religious traditions that is prominently depicted in various Thai temples. In all, there are 14 named sauropods with the word titan in their names.
Nagatitan provides insight into sauropod diversity in the region. Not many sauropods are known from Southeast Asia, and Nagatitan is the largest and the geologically youngest of them. Nagatitan belonged to a subgroup of sauropods that possessed bones with lots of internal air sacs and thin walls, traits that lightened their skeletons.
This group originated around 140 million years ago, achieved a global distribution and, around 90 million years ago, became the only sauropods left worldwide, thriving until the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event. Nagatitan lived at a time when Earth's atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were climbing, corresponding to high global temperatures.
This possible relationship between large body size and high climatic temperatures is not fully understood, but it's likely that the high temperatures had an impact on the plant fodder that was important to sauropods, which were very large-bodied herbivores. Nagatitan gives a glimpse of the period leading up to the eventual peak in body size and temperatures about 10 to 15 million years later
Nagatitan Chaiyaphumensis Sauropod Cretaceous Period Plant-Eating Predators High Temperatures Carbon Dioxide Levels Plant Fodder Alpine Cliffs Winter Olympics Site Dinosaur Footprints Sauropod Diversity Cretaceous-Paleogene Extinction Event
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