It is now confirmed as the largest dinosaur ever found in Southeast Asia.
“We refer to Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis as ‘the last titan’ of Thailand,” Sethapanichsakul said.
In that short time it has built up what may be the third most diverse dinosaur fossil record in Asia.
“Although Thailand is a small country within Asia, we have a very high diversity in dinosaur fossils,” said project leader Sita Manitkoon from Mahasarakham University.
We have a large collection of sauropod fossils that have not yet been formally described – these may include a number of new species,” he said.
Over the last four decades, paleontologists in Thailand have uncovered a remarkably rich and diverse prehistoric history
Ten years ago, some bones turned up at the edge of a pond in northeast Thailand. It took a decade of research to work out what they were.
While dinosaur bones are common in older Thai rocks, they are incredibly rare in the younger, 110-million-year-old layer where this partial skeleton was found.
The bones belonged to a species nobody had ever described before. It was a plant-eating giant that weighed as much as nine Asian elephants and stretched 27 meters (89 feet) from head to tail.
It is now confirmed as the largest dinosaur ever found in Southeast Asia.
The fossils came from Chaiyaphum province in northeast Thailand. The research was led by Thitiwoot Sethapanichsakul, a PhD student at University College London (UCL).
Meet Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis
Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis was a sauropod – the same broad family as Diplodocus and Brontosaurus. It was an enormous plant-eating dinosaur with a long neck and tail.
It lived between 100 and 120 million years ago during the Early Cretaceous period. The landscape was arid to semi-arid and crossed by meandering rivers.
The name takes elements from different traditions. Naga is a mythological aquatic serpent in Thai and Southeast Asian folklore. Titan comes from Greek mythology, and chaiyaphumensis simply means “from Chaiyaphum.”
It is the 14th dinosaur to be formally named in Thailand.
The team worked from spine, rib, pelvis, and leg bones. A single front leg bone measured 1.78 meters (5.8 feet). From those remains, the researchers estimated a total length of 27 meters (89 feet) and a body weight of 27 tons.
“Our dinosaur is big by most people’s standards – it likely weighed at least 10 tons more than Dippy the Diplodocus,” Sethapanichsakul said. “However, it is still dwarfed by sauropods like Patagotitan (60 tons) or Ruyangosaurus (50 tons).”
The mystery of the last titan
Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis belongs to a subgroup called Euhelopodidae, a family of sauropods found only in Asia. It stands apart from other members of that group through a specific combination of features in its spine, pelvis, and legs.
The fossils came from Thailand’s youngest dinosaur-bearing rock formation – the most recently deposited layer in the country to yield dinosaur remains.
The rocks above it contain nothing. By the time those layers formed, the region had become a shallow sea, and the animals that once lived there vanished from the fossil record without a trace.
“We refer to Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis as ‘the last titan’ of Thailand,” Sethapanichsakul said. “This may be the last or most recent large sauropod we will find in Southeast Asia.”
Ancient rivers and giant predators
The hot, dry conditions of Early Cretaceous Thailand suited sauropods particularly well.
Those long necks and tails weren’t just useful for stripping vegetation from tall trees. They also helped the animals shed body heat.
The river system near the fossil site would have been busy, with fish, freshwater sharks, and crocodiles in the water.
On land, Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis shared its world with smaller plant-eaters – iguanodontians and early relatives of Triceratops – and with large predatory dinosaurs, including carcharodontosaurians and spinosaurids. Nagatitan was by far the largest animal in that ecosystem.
A growing dinosaur hotspot
Thailand has only been formally studying its dinosaurs for around 40 years, since the first was named in 1986. In that short time it has built up what may be the third most diverse dinosaur fossil record in Asia.
“Although Thailand is a small country within Asia, we have a very high diversity in dinosaur fossils,” said project leader Sita Manitkoon from Mahasarakham University.
“We’ve already seen a surge of younger-generation palaeontologists actively undertaking research and promoting palaeontology and its importance within the country.”
More dinosaur hunting in Thailand
The team still holds a large collection of sauropod fossils not yet formally described, some of which may represent species new to science. There is clearly more to come.
“My dream is to continue pushing to get Southeast Asian dinosaurs recognized internationally,” Sethapanichsakul said.
“More international collaborations between Thailand and other institutions like UCL can further our understanding of the region’s palaeobiology and apply it to a global context.”
“This all starts with identifying and describing the specimens we have found first. We have a large collection of sauropod fossils that have not yet been formally described – these may include a number of new species,” he said.
A life-size reconstruction is now on display at the Thainosaur Museum at Asiatique in Bangkok.
The study is published in the journal Scientific Reports.
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