How did a paleontologist discover the heaviest animal in history?

Mario Urbina, paleontologist at the National University Mayor de San Marcos de Lima, in Peruthe heaviest animal in history was discovered 16 years ago, in the Okukage Desert, in Ica, in the south of the country.

He was traveling with a friend in a pickup truck when they passed a rocky hill. Urbina asked his friend to approach the scene, but the driver refused. Then the paleontologist asked him to stop the car so he could go there on his own.

With a new refusal, he went out the window to approach the hill. When he got there, he saw what appeared to be a “pink stone”. In fact, what initially looked like a rock was actually a vertebrae Giant PersetusWho lived about 39 million years ago in the sea in what is now Peru.

Giant Persetus: the heaviest animal in history

Hey Giant Persetus It was a whale. Cetaceans are mostly marine mammals. Toothed and toothless whales belong to the group.

Its body mass ranged from 85 to 340 tons, exceeding body weight the blue whaleUntil then, it was considered the animal with the largest body mass. It was between 17 and 20 meters long.

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“perucetus “It can weigh about two blue whales,” said Giovanni Bianucci, lead author of the study. Stady Which he considers the heaviest animal in history, to CNN. He also said the animal weighed “three Argentinosaurus (giant sauropods), more than 30 African elephants and as many as 5,000 people.”

Urbina and a team from the Museum of Natural History of the National University Mayor de São Marcos de Lima discovered 13 vertebrae, four ribs and a pelvic bone from the heaviest animal in history.

“This has been one of my strangest discoveries,” Urbina told BBC News Mundo. “This animal is too big for its time and there is no history for it the animals This size. And to carry each vertebra, six people are needed.