WASHINGTON (Reuters) - It's not exactly small at 30 feet long (9 meters), but you might want to call this newly identified dinosaur the littlest giant.
Scientists in Argentina on Wednesday announced the discovery of the fossilized remains of a unique member of the famous long-necked, plant-munching dinosaurs known as sauropods, the largest land creatures in Earth's history.
The dinosaur, named Leinkupal laticauda, may be the smallest of the sauropod family called diplodocids, typified by the well-known Diplodocus, which lived in North America, they said.
It also is the first of them found in South America. It lived about 140 million years ago, millions of years after scientists had previously thought diplodocids had disappeared, according to Argentine paleontologist Pablo Gallina, one of the researchers.
