Scientists discover `tidal giant' in Egyptian oasis

Scientists have unearthed the remains of an entirely new species of gargantuan dinosaur that was so big it probably made even fierce Tyrannosaurus Rex think twice about taking a bite.

The giant creature was dug up in Egypt along what was then a marshy coastline. The team from the University of Pennsylvania found a humerus, the upper part of its forelimb, that at 67 inches is as tall as the average person. Using this as a measure makes the four-legged creature between 80 and 100 feet long, weighing in at a massive 60 to 70 tonnes.

The behemoth was christened Paralititan stromeri, which means "tidal giant". Despite its size, Paralititan was a plant eater that would have munched its way through a forest of greenery to keep itself going. It lived during the Cretaceous period, about 146 to 65 million years ago, at a time when the mighty meat eater T-Rex stalked the earth.

However, this monster would have dwarfed T-Rex. It would have taken a team of meat eaters waiting in the long grass to bring such a giant to the ground.

The discovery is described this morning in the journal, Science.

The find was made in the Bahariya Oasis about 180 miles south-west of Cairo. It was a desert wasteland, and the creature would have traipsed through swampy terrain surrounded by an ancient mangrove forest. Based on the stone layers in which it was found, the giant died on the edge of a tidal channel about 94 million years ago.

The skeletal remains included several vertebrae, dorsal ribs, its shoulder blades, both upper forelimb bones and possible signs of armour plated skin. There was a wealth of other material in the area from fish and turtles to ancient crocodiles.

The Bahariya Oasis was the site of extensive paleontological research a century ago when German expeditions led by Ernst Stromer carried out digs. They found bones from smaller dinosaurs and other creatures in the early 1900s but these artefacts were lost when Allied bombing in 1944 destroyed the Munich museum where they were housed.

The Egyptian site had remained largely forgotten by scientists until the University of Pennsylvania team began exploring the area in 1999. The seven week dig uncovered Paralititan in January and February 2000. Most of the funding came from Cosmos Studios and MPH Entertainment who shot hundreds of hours of film of the discovery and will produce a number of documentaries about it.