Watch out T-Rex: the Angolatitan Giant is bigger than you!

The Angolatitan adamastor, or Angolan giant, is claimed to be the largest ever dinosaur to have walked our planet. Scientists in Angola have only found the first fossil of it, but they believe that it was an herbivorous, or plant-eating, creature.

The international team of scientists claim that the Angolan giant has unique skeletal characteristics in the fossilised forelimb bone. To them, this suggests that it is part of an entirely unknown dinosaur. It is also an interesting find because it was discovered in a part of the world that would have been completely covered in water at the time approximately 90 millions years ago that the dinosaur was alive.

What this gentle giant may have looked like.

The remains of the Angolan giant were found with fish and shark teeth, suggesting that it was possible that the specimen was washed into the sea and ripped apart by the ancient sharks. People in the community believe they have been more than careful with their findings.

The scientific community is proud to see research coming out of Angola, which has been a country torn apart by civil wars. Science, according to some, was not a priority for the country; they say they are catching up. The real barrier, researchers say, is the lack of funding rather than the fear over the lack of safety in regards to the country’s history.

Throughout the wars in Angola, the fighting ended in 2002 when rebel leader Jonas Savimbi was killed by the army. Despite this, Angola remains littered with land mines. People were left in an impoverished state, even though there was an economic boom when oil was discovered.

It was Octavio Mateus, a member of PaleoAngola and from Portugal’s Universdade Nova de Lisboan and Museum of Lourinha, who made this discovery. Other researchers have been part of the excavations, compiling the research, and writing the paper for scholastic review.