A Long Island scientist made what was literally a GIANT discovery, dating back to some of the oldest creatures ever to walk this earth.
New analysis of fossils revealed some incredible discoveries about one particular type of dinosaur, called a Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum.
The big new revelation: Its neck was nearly 50 feet long. For comparison, that's longer than a school bus, and about six times the size of a giraffe's neck.
Stony Brook paleontologist Dr. Drew Moore has spent the past year using CT technology to study three fossils found in China in the 1980s. Each fossil is a piece of the dinosaur’s neck vertebrae.
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"I was able to produce this 3D model which allows us to better study its anatomy," Moore told NBC New York.
Those vertebrae helped Moore and his colleagues paint a picture of a dinosaur with what’s believed to be the longest neck of any living creature, ever. An artist rendering shows what the dinosaur may have looked like when it roamed the earth 162 million years ago.
"These are the largest herbivores that ever existed," said Dr. Moore. "Having a long neck allows them to plant themselves in one spot and graze anywhere in that feeding envelope."
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Moore says his research will continue to understand the mysteries of these extinct behemoths.
"It just fills your imagination with what did it look like for this animal to live and breathe and move around in its environment," he said.
