The truth is, we don’t know which was the largest dinosaur. Scientists can estimate the size and weight of the now-extinct dinosaurs, but it really is only an estimation. Complete skeletons are rarely found, which makes the measurements harder.
However we can estimate...
What do scientists think is the largest dinosaur?
All the contenders for biggest dinosaur belong to a subgroup of sauropods called the titanosaurs.
Patagotitan mayorum may have measured 37.2m in length, although some scientists believe this is an overestimate. However, Argentinosaurus may have measured between 37-40m in length.
The dinosaur bones that palaeontologists find are not actually made of bone material anymore, but have been turns to fossils over millions of year.
Were dinosaurs bigger than all animals today?
Although they were impressively large, these sauropods were still smaller than the blue whale, which is both the largest mammal to have ever lived and the largest animal to have ever lived.
The largest ever length of a blue whale recorded was 33m, which was an individual caught by whalers. Whilst this makes it shorter than some of the sauropods listed above, the weight of the blue whale far outweighs anything the dinosaurs could have weighed. It is thought that blue whales can weigh between 130,000 - 150,000 kg.
In fact, just the tongue of a blue whale can weigh as much as an elephant!
Main image: Dreadnoughtus is a sauropod dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous period of Argentina. © Nobumichi Tamura/Stocktrek Images/Getty
