Jurassic Park is big news at the moment, with the 4th installment in the franchise, "Jurassic World", smashing box office records across the globe. Although it's been 14 years since the last movie "Jurassic Park 3" in 2001, the human insatiable desire for all things dinosaur doesn't appear to have dissipated in that time.
For keen travellers like us with an interest in all things natural history, geography, and archaeology, some of the more interesting dinosaur news in recent years has been the discoveries of "giant" dinosaurs, and what has excited us here at Go Andes is that a number of these species have been found in South America, particularly in Argentina. This fact, and the recent release of the new Jurassic Park movie, inspired us to investigate where the Dinosaurs from the new Jurassic World Movie actually come from, where did they live, where were their skeletons found?, and find out how many of them came from our favourite continent: South America...
Dinosaurs from Argentina
In Argentina alone some of the largest dinosaurs ever found have been discovered, including:
Argentinosaurus - first discovered in Argentina in 1987 this giant "Titanosaur" from the Late Cretaceous period is thought to have been over 30 metres in length and almost 100 tonnes in weight - simply enormous.
Giganotosaurus - not to be confused with the similarly named Gigantosaurus, Giganotosaurus was a giant dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous period and is one of the largest land carnivores ever to have lived - specimens have been found to be larger than Tyrannosaurus.
Saltasaurus - the name of this dinosaur means "Lizard from Salta", named after the city of Salta in northern Argentina.
Puertasaurus - This dinosaur lived in the region of South America that is now Patagonia, and is estimated to have been around 35 metres in length and close to 100 tonnes in weight - one of the largest terrestrial mammals ever to have lived.
Futalognkosaurus - This dinosaurs was first discovered in 2000 in the Neuquen Province region of Argentina near the border with Chile, and was estimated to be around 26 metres in length. Its strange name is derived from words in the Mapuche language of Mapudungun.
Dinosaurs from Bolivia
Despite the proximity to Argentina, no complete dinosaur skeleton has ever been found in Bolivia, although evidence of dinosaurs can be found:
Ankylosaurus - With its incredibly thick armour and strong plated tail this dinosaur would have been an impressive sight in the flesh. Skeletons have been found in North America, although up to this point no skeleton has been found in Bolivia. However Ankylosaur dinosaur tracks have been discovered near the Bolivian city of Sucre, which can be visited on one of our Bolivia holidays, and these tracks have been important in scientific reference to assist calculations in the speed that these monstrous animals could walk or run.
The Jurassic World Dinosaurs
So where did the dinosaurs from Jurassic World come from? Homw many came from South America?
In actual fact the dinosaurs featured in the movie are from a range of continents across the planet, including North and South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. Although this movie didn't showvcase any of Argentina's giants, maybe they can be the stars of the next movie!
We've put together this infographic to our the results of our adventure of discovery on Jurassic World - we hope you enjoy it!...
