Attenborough and the Giant Dinosaur Page #5

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- Exactly. Taking the flesh out of their tail.

- Really? - Yeah.

The tender bits.

- They would be too.

- Yeah, absolutely.

Can you determine whether it was

a scavenger or it was a hunter?

We don't know if they were dead,

I mean, they were scavenging

on the carcasses, or if they were

actually hunting and killing them.

- Well, it didn't make much difference to the old dinosaur.

- Yes.

In a detective story, to close the case,

you really want to know

how the victim met its end.

If our titanosaur didn't perish

in the jaws of a Tyrannotitan,

how did it die?

Clues can be found by the

detailed three-dimensional mapping

of the location of every fossil bone,

small and large.

That shows that the dig site

contains the remains of not just one

but seven different individuals.

All of the new species.

And the first thing to notice is that

they are on three different levels.

That's to say the animals must have come here

on at least three different occasions.

But why should they have done that?

There are several theories

as to why seven bodies

should have all ended up at

this one particular place.

The first is that this was a seasonal climate

and that as the dry season proceeded

this was one of the last

remaining pools of water

and when this went, the sauropods

that happened to be here died here.

The second is that these bodies

were swept down by great rivers

during the rainy season and then

where the land levelled out,

so those bodies were dumped.

Analysis of the sediments around the

bones shows that there were rivers

gently flowing across this site

at the time of their death.

There was no shortage of water to drink.

What's more the rivers

were not moving fast enough

to shift such huge bodies.

So the corpses weren't washed

here by floodwaters either.

Could there be another reason

why they all died in one

place on three different occasions?

We know from layers of ash

around the bones that there were

volcanoes erupting in the neighbourhood

so doubtless there were

areas where the ground was

warmed by volcanic fumes,

just as they are here today.

We also know that dinosaurs regularly

laid their eggs in such places,

doubtless taking advantage of

the volcanic warmth to help

incubate their eggs.

So maybe that was the reason why they

kept returning to the same place.

Certainly the excavation

of the dinosaur egg site

seems to support this.

Nests like these have been found

at four quite widely

separated layers in the rocks,

showing that dinosaurs came back

to this particular site again

and again and again over

a long period of time.

Ash from a volcanic eruption can

sometimes fall in such quantities

that the whole vegetation is

blanketed by it and killed.

So life in the aftermath of a big eruption

can be very difficult for a plant-eater.

Whatever the explanation,

individuals over several generations came

to this one place and died here.

The dig is coming to an end

and the team have assembled a

record-breaking number of bones

but they're still hoping to find one

last piece of the puzzle - the skull.

- So what number's this, 203?

- Actually this is 223. - 23?

Between the seven individuals?

Yeah.

Between all the seven individuals we found

here on this site.

If these are neck vertebrae,

could they be leading towards a skull?

Yes, that's what were hoping for.

We just found another

neck vertebrae over there.

That would be a great triumph if

you found a skull, wouldn't it?

- There are only three titanosaur skulls known so far.

- Really? - Yeah.

- So they're very rare.

- And that's because they're very fragile.

They're very delicate bones

and they have very light sutures

between each of the bones.

- OK, well, let's hope you find number four.

- Yeah. - Could be under there.

- Could be. We're going for that.

- Wonderful.

Alas, it was not to be.

- So I gather you haven't yet found the skull.

- Sadly not.

The only thing we have found

out of the skull is his tooth.

So to complete the skeleton,

the team have to reconstruct one...

Take that piece out of there.

..basing it on the three skulls

of other titanosaur species

to produce one which most suits

the single tooth that we have.

The scientific team has discovered,

collected, cleaned,

scanned and copied 220 bones of our giant.

Soon it'll be possible to put those

copies together to get some idea

of what the living animal

actually looked like.

But the fossil bones themselves

still have many secrets

that are waiting to be revealed.

All the theory can now be put to the test.

We can finally get the most accurate

estimate of our dinosaur's weight

and true size.

It takes two weeks, working day and night,

to fit all the bones together.

Wow! God!

Absolutely amazing!

Good gracious!

- Well, Diego, are you pleased with it?

- Yes, we are very pleased.

It is been a lot of work,

it has taken 40,000 man-hours to get here

but we're really, really happy with it.

And does it answer some of your

questions about the animal?

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

It answers a lot of questions

but the good thing is it

raises more questions.

So we have a lot of research

to continue on this animal.

It's clear that this thing

still wasn't fully grown.

It's massive, but it still had room to go.

You mean the structure of the bones looks as

- though they were still growing?

- Yeah.

So, that raises the really big question,

is it the biggest

so far discovered?

Well, according to our estimate,

this animal weighed 70 metric tonnes.

70 metric tonnes.

What would that compare with?

- That is like 15 African elephants.

- 15 African elephants?

We are now sure that this animal

was 10% larger than Argentinosaurus.

The previous record-holder?

The previous record-holder. So, yes,

- we think we have the largest dinosaur ever known.

- Fantastic!

I can quite believe it.

- Congratulations to you.

- Thank you. - Congratulations to he, she or it.

Wonderful! A marvellous, marvellous thing!

Piecing this complex jigsaw puzzle together

has been a fascinating adventure.

It all started with the discovery

of one enormous thighbone.

And then a team of 40 worked

for over two years to excavate

and put together the near-complete skeleton

of the largest land animal yet discovered.

And so added one further marvel

to the astonishing history of life on earth.

What a thrill it must have been

to see it when it was alive.

DEEP BREATHING:

RUMBLING:

RUMBLING:

TITANOSAUR ROARS

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