The fossilized bones of a massive 90-million-year-old dinosaur were so extraordinarily heavy that they caused a transport truck to lose balance and crash — with one bone flying off the vehicle, piercing the road without suffering a single scratch.

According to Live Science, the first fossil fragments of this ancient beast were discovered back in 2018, partially exposed on the windswept hills of Argentina’s so-called “Monster Plains” — the Patagonian region of Río Negro, an area renowned for yielding the remains of ancient giants.

One of the beast’s bones, encased in plaster for transport – (Photo: Nicolas Chimento)

Since then, scientists have unearthed seven massive fossilized bones, including parts of the forelimbs, hind limbs, and pelvis. But these weren’t ordinary fossils. Each bone was so heavy that archaeologists had to coordinate multi-person efforts to move them, inch by inch.

The drama didn’t stop there. While transporting the bones to the capital, Buenos Aires, for further study, the sheer weight of one fossil caused the specialized vehicle to tip and crash. One colossal bone was ejected during the accident — it smashed into the pavement with such force that it cracked the road, yet emerged completely intact. Miraculously, no one was seriously injured.

Archaeologists next to some excavated fossil bones – (Photo: Nicolas Chimento)

Inspired by the incident, researchers named the new species Chucarosaurus diripienda. In the Indigenous Quechua language, chucaro means “unbreakable or wild beast,” while diripienda is Latin for “hurled away.”

Led by paleontologist Fernando Novas of the Bernardino Rivadavia Natural Sciences Museum, the team classified the creature as a titanosaur — a subgroup of the massive sauropod dinosaurs, known for their long necks, powerful legs, and plant-based diets.

This iron-clad giant is estimated to have weighed between 30 to 40 tons in its prime and stretched up to 30 meters (nearly 100 feet) in length. It lived around 90 million years ago during the Cretaceous period, the golden age of giant dinosaurs.

Illustration of a titanosaur – (Photo: Sebastián Rozadilla)

The discovery has been published in the journal Cretaceous Research. Despite its monstrous size, Chucarosaurus doesn’t hold the title of the largest dinosaur ever. Other titanosaurs discovered in Argentina — like Patagotitan, Argentinosaurus, and Notocolossus — are believed to have weighed as much as 70 tons. Meanwhile, the record for longest dinosaur belongs to Supersaurus, which lived around 150 million years ago in what is now the western United States, measuring an astonishing 39 meters (128 feet) from snout to tail.