When paleontologists pulled the bones of Dreadnoughtus out of the Patagonian desert in Argentina, they knew they had something special. The skeleton was 70% complete by bone count - extremely rare for a giant - and it was clearly enormous.
The team needed a name big enough for the animal. They picked “Dreadnoughtus” - borrowed from the giant battleships called dreadnoughts (“fears nothing”) that ruled the seas a century ago. The species name was added in honor of an investor who funded the dig.
The really remarkable thing? The bones showed Dreadnoughtus was still growing when it died. So somewhere out there in 84-million-year-old rock, there’s probably an even bigger one.
