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World’s largest dinosaur to debut at Museum of Natural History on Friday – Metro US

World’s largest dinosaur to debut at Museum of Natural History on Friday

The world’s largest dinosaur is calling New York City its home — and don’t worry, its a vegetarian.

Starting on Friday, the American Museum of Natural History will debut its newest exhibit featuring the cast of a 122-foot-long dinosaur — which has yet to be named.

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The dinosaur was an herbivore belonging to the titanosaur group and weighed in at about 70 tons. The cast, which will be on display, is based on 84 fossil bones excavated in 2014 in Patagonia, Argentina.

“While the titanosaur itself is ancient, it nevertheless embodies and reflects the very modern, dynamic, and thrilling state of paleontology today,” said Ellen Futter, president of the museum. “The museum continues to be at the forefront of both research about the history of life on Earth and the interpretation of the very latest discoveries for audiences of all kinds. And, of course, a deeper knowledge of the past enriches our understanding of the present and informs our hopes for the future.”

This titanosaur — replacing the Barosaurus, which was on display since 1996 in the museum — is believed to have stood 20 feet from its shoulder to the ground, or 46 feet tall with its neck at a 45-degree angle.

Too large to fit into the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Orientation Center, part of the dinosaur’s long neck will extend out towards the elevator banks with the head handing 9.5 feet above the floor.

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The life-sized skeleton display at the museum will not include any real fossils because they are too heavy to mount. The bones were instead recreated out of fiberglass 3D prints over the course of six months.

Along with the cast of the 84 bones found, the skeleton display also included “missing” ones which were created based on analysis of the dinosaur’s close relatives.

For a limited time, five original fossils found will be on temporary view along with the display at the museum.

Excavations by scientists from the Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio led to a total of 223 fossil bones being discovered from six young adults who would have lived in the Argentinean area about 100 million years ago.