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Named Ledumahadi mafube, the new dinosaur species weighed 12 tons, stood about 13 feet high at the hips, and is one of the closest relatives of sauropod dinosaurs. Sauropods, weighing up to 60 tons, include well-known species like Brontosaurus. They ate plants and stood on four legs, with a posture like modern elephants.Ledumahadi mafube evolved its giant size independently from sauropods.“It shows us that even as far back as 200 million years ago, these animals had already become the largest vertebrates to ever walk the Earth,” said Professor Jonah Choiniere, a researcher in the Evolutionary Studies Institute at the University...

)If humans had lived 200 million years ago, they would have marveled at the largest dinosaur of its time. It's name means "a giant thunderclap at dawn." The recently discovered fossil of a new dinosaur species in South Africa revealed a relative of the brontosaurus that weighed 26,000 pounds, about double the size of a large African elephant. The researchers have named it Ledumahadi mafube, which is Sesotho for "a giant thunderclap at dawn." Sesotho is an official South African language indigenous to the part of the country where the dinosaur was found. "The name reflects the great size of...