This dinosaur had the biggest neck on record — as long as a school bus, research shows

Don Sweeney
·1 min read

A dinosaur from the Jurassic Era clocks in with a 49-foot neck, making it the longest-necked dinosaur discovered, researchers reported.

Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum, a sauropod similar to the more-famous brachiosaurus, roamed northwest China about 162 million years ago, Live Science reported.

Now a study published March 15 by the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology suggests the dinosaur may hold the record for the longest neck.

Researchers re-evaluated the dinosaur’s neck length by comparing the only known fossil, which is incomplete, to those of closely related dinosaurs, the study said.

They concluded that Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum probably had 18 vertebrae in its neck, like its cousins, giving a revised average neck length of 49.5 feet, according to the study.

That’s slightly longer than a school bus, Live Science reported.

Or six times the length of a giraffe’s neck, according to a news release on the discovery.

It’s also longer than a semi-trailer or about as tall as each letter in the Hollywood sign, according to The Measure of Things.

You also could say it’s about as long as three SUVs parked end-to-end, Measuring Stuff reported.

What did the dinosaur do with such a ridiculously long neck? Eat, mostly.

“The long neck of Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum, like those of other sauropods, would have made the animal an efficient forager, able to graze on the huge volumes of browse necessary to fuel such a huge body before moving to the next vegetation-rich spot,” author Andrew Moore(opens in new tab), a paleontologist at Stony Brook University in New York, told Live Science.

Paleontologists discovered the dinosaur in 1986, recovering only a jaw bone and neck vertebrae and neck ribs, the publication said.

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