We need to talk about incredible Sir David Attenborough and the Giant Dinosaur

Just two years ago a bone like no other was unearthed in Patagonia, but was this proof of the biggest animal to ever roam the planet?Two of the nation’s childhood favourites came together as Sir David Attenborough appeared on our screens with his new BBC documentary David Attenborough And The Giant Dinosaur.

Just a few years ago, a shepherd discovered a gigantic bone poking out of the ground in Patagonia, Argentina, but the bone was like no other ever discovered before. It was a 2.4m thigh bone weighing over half a ton and belonged to the Titanosaur, which were estimated to have existed over 100 million years ago.

With the help of experts from Patagonia’s Museum of Palaeontology, Sir David was on a mission to determine whether this dinosaur really was bigger than any other animal to ever walk to Earth.

Over a course of two years the team of palaeontologists excavated a further 200 bones – 10 times as many bones as was previously discovered in one site – belonging to the dinosaur, transporting them back to their laboratory for further inspection and preservation.

After discovering the thigh bone, the team discovered another bone from the front leg – the humerus- and with that fossil they deduced the giant dinosaur could’ve weighed up to 70 tonnes. That was more than the Argentinosaurus, the heaviest known dinosaur ever recorded.Soon Sir David travelled to a dinosaur nesting ground to find out just how the Titanosaur reproduced.

Remnants of dinosaur eggs covered the site which were once river plains, and Sir David managed to uncover fragments of well-preserved egg shells – some even had skin and bones of a baby dinosaur still attached.To understand how the young Titanosaur might have lived, Sir David turned his attention to their closest living relatives… ostriches.

The dinosaurs would have been able to walk quite soon after birth and, growing very quickly with a lifespan of up to 50 years, they would have had more than enough time to reach their enormous size.

vAs the Titanosaurs grew larger, they adopted a form similar to elephants, with their legs places vertically beneath the body like huge weight-bearing columns. But there was one difference – the swing of its tail helped the animal move its hind legs much more efficiently, much like kimodo dragon lizard.

Uncovering a tiny tooth at the site in Patagonia, the team deduced the animal fed on plant material – mainly ferns and conifers – and ate enough in one day to fill a whole skip.

It was soon time to reconstruct a life-size skeleton of the Titanosaur in the world’s biggest dinosaur making factory in Toronto, Canada.

3D scans of the bones were taken in the lab in Argentina and sent to the team at the factory, who created polystyrene casts to mould huge fibreglass replicas of the bones.

After two weeks spent piecing the bones together, the replica of the giant Titanosaur was unveiled back at Patagonia’s Museum of Palaeontology, where it was confirmed at 70 tonnes and 37 metres long, the dinosaur was indeed the biggest animal to ever walk on Earth.