Scientists Find New Dinosaur in Thailand With a Neck the Length of Two School Buses
A dinosaur with a neck stretching up to 66 feet was roaming what is now northeast Thailand about 150 million years ago — and scientists just figured out it was a species nobody had ever identified before.
The new species is called Uragasaurus kalasinensis. A study published in Nature on July 8 confirmed the discovery, led by Dr. Apirut Nilpanapan from Mahasarakham University. The dinosaur belonged to the Mamenchisauridae family — a group of long-necked sauropods that are among the most extreme examples of neck length in the entire fossil record.
Sixty-six feet. That's about twice the size of a standard school bus. Just the neck.
How They Found It
The discovery started with a single bone — a dorsal vertebra, which comes from the middle or upper back. Researchers found it in Phu Noi, an area in northeast Thailand that has produced a variety of fossils from the late Jurassic period.
What made this bone stand out was something inside it. Nilpanapan told BBC Thai that a unique air-cavity structure in the bone was "unlike any other dinosaur in the world. That's what sets it apart."
From there, the team used CT scanning and 3D reconstruction to study both the internal and external structure of the bone in detail. They compared the anatomy to every known long-necked sauropod in the fossil record. Nothing matched. What they had was something new.
Nilpanapan said he was so relieved and excited when the conclusion became clear that he smashed his computer. Which is one way to celebrate a scientific breakthrough.
Why Finding This in Thailand Matters
Most Mamenchisauridae fossils have been found in China. This is the first confirmed member of the family ever discovered in Thailand — and that geographic shift tells researchers something important about how these animals lived and moved.
"It shows that the population here might have migrated or spread from south China to Southeast Asia," Nilpanapan told reporters.
That migration theory opens up new questions about how far these animals ranged, what the landscape of the region looked like 150 million years ago, and whether more Mamenchisauridae remains might be hiding in Southeast Asian fossil sites that haven't been fully excavated yet. Finding one species in a new region is often the start of finding more.
Thailand Is Becoming a Serious Fossil Hotspot
This isn't even the first major dinosaur discovery in Thailand this year. Back in May, scientists identified a different long-necked herbivore called the Nagatitan from fossils also found in the country. The Nagatitan is currently the largest dinosaur ever found in Southeast Asia — measuring 88 feet long and weighing over 29 tons.
Two significant new dinosaur species from the same country in the same year is not a coincidence. It reflects both the richness of Thailand's Jurassic fossil beds and an increasing investment in the paleontological research needed to identify what's actually sitting in the ground there.
Phu Noi, where Uragasaurus was found, appears to be particularly promising. The late Jurassic fossil concentration in that area suggests it was once a very different kind of environment — lush, forested, and populated by creatures that make today's largest animals look small by comparison.
A 66-foot neck. A single bone. A species that walked the earth 150 million years ago, identified at last.
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