In January of 2021, a collection of bones was found in Neuquén Province in northwest Patagonia in Argentina, according to Independent. The Independent also stated that the fossils have been identified as those from the sauropod family of dinosaurs. Scientists believe that the fossil remains could belong to a relative of the Titanosaur, according to BBC.

 The fossils are also believed to be about 140 million years old, and they might belong to the oldest Titanosaur to be discovered, according to Independent. “It is the oldest record known, not only from Argentina but worldwide,” study lead author Pablo Gallina, a researcher at the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research of Argentina (CONICET), told Reuters. Titanosaurs had very long necks, pillar-like legs, and were the largest growing land animal that was ever known to exist according to independent.

 The remains are not a complete skeleton. They consist of the pelvic bone and vertebrae, only giving an indication of the enormous scale of the animal according to BBC. The authors of a paper presenting the research on the find published in the journal Cretaceous Research suggest, the animal could come from a previously unknown population of Patagonian sauropods. BBC also stated that, ¨it is hard to tell what kind of dinosaur it actually was because the whole skeleton is not there¨. They are going off the size of the dinosaur and the bones that they do have. 

Not only was this discovery record breaking it was also important for the history of evolution. Pablo Gallina, a researcher at the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research of Argentina, also said in a statement that, “This discovery is also very important for the knowledge of the evolutionary history of sauropods because the fossil records of the Early Cretaceous epoch, in around 140 million years ago, are really very scarce throughout the world”.  According to USA Today, this new discovery shows that Titanosaurs lived longer than previously thought. At the beginning of the Cretaceaous era that ended up with all the Dinosaurs dying. 

The find provides paleontologists with a greater understanding of the exposure of the dinosaurs, how they evolved, and how they lived. They can now prove that numerous sauropods lived next to each other. “The specimen here reported strongly suggests the co-existence of the largest and middle-sized titanosaurs with small-sized rebbachisaurids (a family of sauropod dinosaurs) at the beginning of the Late Cretaceous in Neuquén Province, indicating putative niche partitioning.” said Pablo Gallina. Clearly this discovery of bones has helped scientists immensely.