Scientists Identify Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis in Dinosaur Thailand Fossils

Scientists have identified dinosaur thailand fossils as a new long-necked species, Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis, from Chaiyaphum Province in northeastern Thailand. The specimen may have been over 88 feet long and nearly 30 tons, making it a candidate for the largest dinosaur ever found in Southeast Asia.

Sita Manitkoon, a paleontologist at Mahasarakham University in Thailand and a National Geographic Explorer, led the research team. She said, "Initial measurements of the bones excavated suggested that this could be the largest dinosaur ever found in Southeast Asia," after the discovery was announced on Thursday in Scientific Reports.

Chaiyaphum Province Fossils

Thanom Luangnan found the fossils in 2016 and reported the strange-looking rocks to Thailand's Department of Mineral Resources. The bones later proved to be from 113-million-year-old rock in the Khok Kruat Formation, where the specimen left behind vertebrae, ribs, hip bones, and limb bones.

Pedro Mocho, a paleontologist at the Universidade de Lisboa and a coauthor of the study, said, "This is the most complete sauropod specimen discovered from the Khok Kruat Formation." That completeness sets Nagatitan apart from earlier Thai dinosaur finds, which were known only from fragments.

Early Cretaceous Thailand

The dinosaur lived during the Early Cretaceous, about 110 to 120 million years ago, when Thailand was closer to the equator. The same rock formation points to a landscape of relatively open, slightly dry shrublands, a setting that researchers say may help explain how giant sauropods developed.

Nagatitan belonged to the somphospondyli group, and its right forelimb is longer than those of Patagotitan and Dreadnoughtus. Researchers also note that sauropod dinosaurs evolved giant body sizes more than 30 times over more than a hundred million years on at least six landmasses, making this Thai find part of a much wider pattern rather than an isolated oddity.

Thailand's New Giant

Paul Upchurch, a paleontologist at University College London and a coauthor of the study, helped place the fossil in that broader evolutionary picture. For readers in Thailand's northeast, the practical takeaway is simple: a set of rocks first noticed at a public pond in 2016 is now carrying a name, an estimated size, and a clearer place in the dinosaur record.