An artist’s impression of Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum, which a new study claims had the longest neck of any animal that ever lived
It’s no secret that sauropods – a clade of giant dinosaurs that includes the famous Brachiosaurus – had really long necks, but now paleontologists claim to have identified the species that takes the crown. According to the team, Mamenchisaurus has the longest neck of any known animal ever, measuring almost 50 ft (over 15 m).
Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum was first discovered in China in 1987, and dates back about 162 million years to the Late Jurassic period. The species had the familiar body plan of most sauropods – a gigantic, stocky barrel of a body held up by four huge elephant-like legs, with a long neck at one end counterbalanced by a similarly long tail. The relatively small head sought out an endless supply of plants to graze on. It was, in the words of Jurassic Park’s Dr. Alan Grant, “kind of a big cow.”
