Nearly five years after their discovery at a railway construction site in Davinópolis, Maranhão, the bones found have been identified as belonging to a new species of dinosaur known as Dasosaurus tocantinensis. This significant paleontological finding was published in the Journal of Systematic Paleontology on the 12th of this month. The dinosaur lived around 120 million years ago and measured up to 20 meters in length, classifying it within the titanosaurs, a group of long-necked, four-legged dinosaurs, which includes the largest known dinosaurs.

The bones discovered include a femur measuring approximately 1.5 meters, along with various other skeletal parts such as limbs, pelvis, and ribs. Such large-scale fossils provide crucial information about the prehistoric life that once inhabited the region of present-day Brazil. The findings also suggest that this giant dinosaur shares ancestral ties with similar dinosaurs in Europe, indicating a diverse evolutionary history and widespread distribution of large dinosaurs during the Cretaceous period.

Researchers propose that the lineage to which Dasosaurus tocantinensis belongs originated in Europe around 130 million years ago, alongside another long-necked dinosaur, the Garumbatitan morellensis, followed by a spread into northern Africa. This discovery highlights the significance of Brazilian paleontology and opens new avenues for understanding the evolution and migration patterns of dinosaurs across continents.