Big Fella

Paleontologists have found bones in Oklahoma from a previously unknown species of dinosaur and one of the biggest ever discovered: a 60-ton giraffe-like creature that could have peered into a sixth-story window if there had been any buildings around 110 million years ago. The 60-foot-tall species has been dubbed Sauroposeidon proteles, or “thunder lizard.” Its name is derived from Poseidon, the Greek god associated with the sea and with earthquakes. Proteles is an allusion to the fact that it is one of the last and most specialized of its kind. The creature was so big that “even if it tried to do so gingerly, it would create a little seismic activity” when it walked, said University of Oklahoma paleontologist Richard Cifelli.