Scientists find 6.5ft thigh bone weighing half a tonne belonging to a giant sauropod dinosaur that lived 140 million years ago in south west France

Palaeontologists have unearthed a 6.5 foot-long (two metre) thigh bone that belonged to a giant sauropod dinosaur around 140 million years ago.

The enormous bone — which weighs in at around half a tonne — was unearthed from a dinosaur fossil-rich dig site in the department of Charente south west France.

At the time that the giant dinosaur would have lived, the area — located near the town of Cognac — would have been a marshland.

Located in southwestern France, the Angeac-Charente dig site is unique across all of Europe, with palaeontologists having already uncovered around 7,500 bones — from 45 different species of dinosaur — since excavations began back in 2010.

‘This femur is huge! And in an exceptional state of conservation,’ Angouleme Museum curator Jean-François Tournepiche told The Local.

‘It’s very moving.’

Alongside the thigh bone, volunteers with the National Museum of Natural History in Paris also uncovered a giant pelvis bone from the same layer of clay. 

Experts believe that the thigh bone belonged to a sauropod — one of a group of long-necked, plant-eating dinosaurs that include some of the largest animals to have ever walked the Earth.

‘We can see the insertions of muscles and tendons, scars,’ added Ronan Allain, a palaeontologist at Paris’ National Museum of Natural History. 

‘This is a very rare find as large pieces tend to collapse on themselves, to fragment.’

Palaeontologists have been working to reconstitute a complete sauropod skeleton from several different specimens that have been unearthed from Angeac-Charente in the last decade — with the reconstruction now around 50 per cent complete.

source: Daily Mail via MSN