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China fossils reveal 70-tonne dinosaur had 15-metre neck.

A dinosaur that roamed east Asia more than 160m years ago has been named a contender for the animal with the longest neck ever known.

A new analysis of bones from the beast’s neck and skull revealed that the dinosaur, known as Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum, sported a neck 15metres long, or one-and-a-half times the length of a doubledecker bus.

The fossilised remains of the creature were recovered in 1987 from 162 million-year-old rocks in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of north-west China, but the full length of the animal’s neck was only recently reassessed by scientists.

The dinosaur was one of the huge herbivorous sauropods that grew to 50 metres from snout to tail and weighed more than 70 tonnes. Despite only a handful of bones remaining of the beast, researchers were able to estimate the length of its neck by comparing the remains with complete fossils belonging to closely related dinosaurs.

Source: www.theguardian.com

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