Taller than a six-story building.
Longer than three school busses.
Ten times as heavy as an elephant.
The largest dinosaur ever
is coming back from extinction.
In 1987,
a farmer in south western Argentina
made a discovery
that shook the paleontology
world to the bones.
Six bones, to be more precise.
And they seemed to come
from the largest dinosaur
to have ever existed.
Argentinosaurus, or Argentine lizard,
lived during the middle Cretaceous period
about 90 million years ago.
They were herbivorous sauropods.
That means that they subsisted
on a diet of plants
and their bodies had distinctly long,
massive necks and tails.
And when I say massive,
I mean massive.
Though they’d start their lives
as small as 5 kg (11 lb),
over 40 years,
they would grow to be around
75,000 kg (165,000 lb).
At the peak of their growth,
they could have gained around
40 kilograms (88 lb) every day.
Whoa.
That means these dinos likely
had a never-ending appetite
that required 100,000 calories daily.
So if they were alive today,
would they eventually eat
every plant and crop on the planet?
If the Argentinosaurus
managed to stage a comeback,
they'd discover that
their old stomping grounds
in South America
would look very different than they did
so many millions of years ago.
The ecosystems that exist
in this part of the world
are completely different
than they were then.
This would pose a problem
for the voracious leafy appetite
that the Argentinosaurus had.
And they wouldn't be the only ones
with an ecosystem headache.
You would too.
They would eat so many of our trees
that they could completely alter
the world as we know it.
Along with their eating habits,
these creatures would bring chaos
and destruction everywhere they went.
Paleontologists suggest
that these dinosaurs
were a towering
17 m (57 ft) tall
and spanned 35 m (115 ft) in length.
Which is a size that continues
to baffle scientists,
who wonder how the creatures
could have managed to hold up their own
giant necks.
It's estimated that their hearts
would have needed to be able
to pump blood
as far as 12 m (40 ft)
about 50 to 60 times every minute.
Combine their stature
with their astounding weight,
and they’d destroy
just about everything in their path.
Homes, infrastructure, people.
It would be kind of like Godzilla,
only more by accident.
Especially if there were more
than one Argentinosaurus.
And you’d better believe there would be.
With these dinosaurs roaming around,
you could expect
to come across one of their nesting sites
on your next hike.
Argentinosaurus was an egg-laying species
and females could have laid anywhere
from 10 to 15 eggs at a time.
And these wouldn't be anything
like your average chicken eggs.
They'd be as large
as 30 cm (1 ft) in diameter.
It's likely that you'd need
to come up with some ways to contain
their growing population size.
Soon enough,
they could lay so many eggs that
all of South America
would be overrun by big dinos.
If only there were a way
that we could tame them
like elephants
and use them to our advantage.
But this would be a pretty dangerous task,
considering their size.
And not to mention
our lack of knowledge
about how temperamental
they could have been.
Besides,
the conditions we'd need to keep them in
would likely be inhumane.
It would involve
keeping them in contained areas
that aren't large enough to sustain them.
But of course,
we couldn't let them wildly roam
the planet wherever they wanted.
I mean, that is if you
wanted to keep living on this planet too.
You'd hopefully see conservation efforts
to provide an area for them
to wander about
and live peacefully.
Though coming up with a system
to actually contain them
would be a tough task.
Electric fences could be effective
as the Argentinosaurus lacked
natural body armor.
So they'd be vulnerable
to shocks or injuries.
But if they gathered in herds,
as paleontologists suggest they would,
then even more space
and kilometers of electric fences
could be necessary.
But this would also help
to protect them from poachers
looking to hunt down
the biggest game known to man.
It would especially protect the babies
who would be left
to fend for themselves
as soon as they were born.
Sadly, reintroducing the largest dinosaurs
to ever exist
would ultimately lead to yet
another attempt by humans
to conquer everything in nature.
So maybe we'd meet our match
with a dino
that has a little more of a craving
for our tasty human flesh.
Like if the T.rex
suddenly came back from extinction.
Well, that’s a story for another WHAT IF.