Overview
- A peer‑reviewed study in Scientific Reports formally describes Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis, a long‑necked plant‑eater estimated at about 27 meters long and roughly 27 tonnes.
- The fossils were first spotted by a local resident in 2016 in Chaiyaphum, northeast Thailand, and include vertebrae, ribs, parts of the hip, and limb bones with a leg bone measuring 1.78 meters.
- Geologic dating places the animal in the early Cretaceous about 110 to 120 million years ago from Thailand’s youngest dinosaur‑bearing rocks, leading the team to call it the country’s “last titan.”
- Phylogenetic tests place the species within Euhelopodidae and suggest a possible sister relationship to the Spanish sauropod Europatitan, though the authors stress this result is provisional given missing material.
- No skull or teeth were recovered, yet comparisons with related sauropods suggest a bulk‑feeding herbivore that lived on a semi‑dry floodplain with a meandering river, a context that could guide future digs across Southeast Asia.