Titanosaurus, a dinosaur so big it ate in its sleep, is in the Natural History Museum.

A giant herbivorous dinosaur so big it ate in its sleep has brought its size to the Natural History Museum.

According to scientists, the titanosaurus Patagotitan mayorum had to chew in its sleep to maintain its weight of 57 tons.

These “walking vacuum cleaners” were a serious contender for the title of the largest animal ever to walk the earth. They were about 37 meters long and 5 meters high, eight times the size of a T-Rex.

The giant herbivore probably chose the wrong type of diet when it roamed the Earth about 101 million years ago, choosing mostly monkey puzzles, tree ferns, horsetail plants and coniferous leaves over a more nutritious and meaty diet.

Many Titanosaurus meals were coarse or prickly, but it had to eat so much that it couldn’t afford to be fussy, and its huge intestines were capable of digesting the toughest of plants.

However, it would be wise not to sail with the wind, as they fermented their food in large quantities and produced massive amounts of methane as a by-product.

In fact, their methane production was so great that it is believed they contributed to the period of global warming that hit the planet at the time.

The animal’s need for large amounts of food with relatively little energy meant that it likely spent at least 22 hours a day consuming 129 kg of vegetation, the equivalent of 516 iceberg lettuces.

Therefore, according to Professor Paul Barrett, head of the Department of Fossil Vertebrates, he probably should have eaten during sleep, at least intermittently. at the Natural History Museum.

“These guys were essentially walking vacuum cleaners for vegetation. They would be constantly moving, constantly browsing and eating 22 hours a day, maybe more. It is possible that they continued to eat while they slept, and fell asleep a little while chewing, ”he shared. I.

“It’s quite difficult to make a living by eating plants. They digest a lot and contain relatively few nutrients compared to carnivores.

“But the advantage is that there are a lot of plants here and you don’t have to run after them, so it’s a plentiful food source that’s relatively easy to find. Meat, on the other hand, is a high-calorie food source, but is much more difficult to obtain. Sometimes you can sit for a long time between meals, so this is a compromise.

Patagotitan mayorum was first discovered in 2010 when a rancher in Patagonia came across a giant femur sticking out of the ground. More than 200 skeletal parts were later discovered by Argentinean fossil experts – the remains of at least six separate animals.

These animals were built as suspension bridges with huge backbones, huge necks for gathering food from trees, and tails for balance.

Casts of these bones were taken at the Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio in Trelew, Patagonia, and they form the skeleton that will be on display at the National Historical Museum from Friday – the first time it will be on display in Europe.

It is the most complete megadino fossil ever assembled, and the cast weighs 2.7 tons.

The length of his thigh is 2.38 meters compared to 1.78 meters for the average Briton. And it weighed 57 tons – about the same as 40 Mini.

Every time the heart beats about six times a minute, 65 liters of blood circulate in it.

As impressive as his stature may be to the layman, the fact that he’s massive may not be the only thing he claims, Professor Barrett argues.

“Dinosaurs work hard because of their size. So that it does not fall, it can withstand almost 60 tons of weight at the same time. It requires muscle activity just to keep the legs stable so they don’t sway to the sides,” he said.

“You also need to oxygenate every part of your body and get rid of waste. And you generate a huge amount of heat within yourself through your digestion and just your muscles that are constantly contracting to keep you moving.

“So there are a lot of issues with being this big – because of this excess heat dissipation, gravity and movement, you are pumping blood against a pressure gradient down that long neck and into that long tail, so there are some issues that need to be addressed. “. decide.”

But it’s not all bad, he says. First, you can go without food for a long time, so you won’t be so obsessed with where your next meal is coming from.

“You are big, so you have fat stores and a relatively low food requirement per pound, which often allows you to survive environmental issues in the short term. [food shortages] without much suffering,” he said.

“But something that has a much higher metabolic rate, and that needs to be constantly fed at a very high level, like a small animal like a mouse, is very different. In general, if you starve a mouse for several hours, it will be very good bad. If you starve one of them for several hours, it will not be happy, but it will be fine.

In fact, an animal of this size is extremely difficult to kill.

Titanosaurs were the largest animals on Earth, although blue whales are larger. Patagotian mayorum is one of the three or four largest known titanosaurs, and it’s quite possible that it was the largest of all – something we’ll never know for sure, given the lack of comparable finds.

Titanosaurus: Live Like The Biggest Dinosaur opens at the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, London on Friday 31 March and runs until Sunday 7 January 2024.