Massive dinosaur skeleton will spill out of hall at NY museum

People stand near the skeleton cast of a titanosaur during a media preview at the American Museum of Natural History in New York January 14, 2016. The new, 122-foot (37-meter) dinosaur skeleton to be unveiled on Friday is too long to fit in the fossil hall and so its neck and head will poke out toward the elevator banks, offering a surprise greeting when the lift doors open. [Photo/Agencies]

Paleontologists have inferred that the dinosaur, a giant herbivore that belongs to a group known as titanosaurs, weighed about 70 tons - as much as 10 African elephants, the statementsaid.

One of the largest dinosaurs ever found, the species was discovered in 2014 in Argentina's Patagonia region, where titanosaurs roamed the forests about 100 million years ago.

"Titanosaur fossils have been unearthed on every continent,and an abundance of discoveries in recent years has helped us appreciate the deep diversity of this group," said museum official Michael Novacek.

Experts said the biggest threat posed by gargantuan plant eaters was being stepped on.