5 Heaviest Land Animals Ever to Exist

In 1878, the American palaeontologist Edward Drinker Cope described a single dinosaur back bone from Colorado. Nearly 150 years later, researchers are still arguing about the animal it came from. Nobody can re-examine the bone directly, because it has been lost.

In the 1980s, in southern India, researchers dug up a leg bone about two metres long. It fell apart before it could reach a museum.

Those two missing fossils sit at the top of this list. That is the awkward truth about ranking the heaviest land animals that ever lived: the biggest contenders are the ones we are least able to check. So rather than hide it, this list shows its working.

#5 Notocolossus

About 45 to 60 tonnes | Late Cretaceous, Argentina

Named in 2016 from fossils found in Mendoza Province, Argentina, Notocolossus means “southern colossus”. Only a few bones survive, but every one is enormous. Its upper arm bone is 1.76 metres long, the longest of any titanosaur when it was described. A second individual left a complete hind foot, built to carry extraordinary weight.

The weight. Its describers estimated about 60 tonnes, but warned the figure could fall to around 45, and that their method may overestimate the biggest titanosaurs.

Why #5? Its range overlaps Patagotitan’s. The same method first gave Patagotitan 69 tonnes, so compared like with like, Notocolossus comes out lighter.

#4 Patagotitan

About 57 tonnes | Early Cretaceous, Argentina | The best-known giant

In 2010, a worker on La Flecha Ranch in Patagonia spotted an enormous bone poking out of the ground. Digs over the next five years recovered hundreds of bones from at least six individuals, buried by floods about 101 million years ago. It was named in 2017, after the Mayo family who own the ranch.

The weight. It was first put at about 69 tonnes and billed as the biggest dinosaur yet. In 2020, the same research group revised that to a mean of 57 tonnes, and a separate volumetric model landed on almost exactly the same figure. London’s Natural History Museum calls it the giant whose size scientists can be most sure of.

#3 Argentinosaurus

About 77 tonnes | Late Cretaceous, Argentina

A farmer found the first bone near the town of Plaza Huincul in Neuquén Province. The site was dug in 1989, and Argentinosaurus was named in 1993. It then held the title of the biggest known dinosaur for almost 20 years.

The weight. Three independent studies put it at 73, 77 and 83 tonnes, an unusually tight range for a giant sauropod.

The catch. Even Argentinosaurus is known only from a handful of huge vertebrae, part of the hips and one lower leg bone. But those bones sit in a museum and can be measured again, which is more than can be said for the two animals above it. Of all the giants known from substantial surviving remains, this is the heaviest.

#2 Maraapunisaurus

80 to 120 tonnes | Late Jurassic, Colorado, USA | One bone, now lost

In 1878, Edward Drinker Cope described a single vertebra from Colorado in the United States. The bone was later lost, and no photograph of it exists. All that survives is Cope’s written description and his drawing.

For decades it was pictured as a super-sized relative of Diplodocus, up to 58 metres long. In 2018, palaeontologist Kenneth Carpenter looked again and concluded it belonged to a different family with much taller back vertebrae. He renamed it Maraapunisaurus, from the Southern Ute word for “huge”. His revised animal is shorter, at 30 to 32 metres, but still about 8 metres tall at the hips.

The weight. Gregory Paul estimates 80 to 120 tonnes. Another study puts it nearer 70.

The catch. There is no bone to re-measure. Every estimate rests on a description written in the 1870s.

#1 Bruhathkayosaurus

Probably 110 to 130 tonnes | Late Cretaceous, India | Fossils disintegrated

Bruhathkayosaurus was described in 1987 from fossils found in Tamil Nadu, southern India. It was first mistaken for a large meat-eater. Then the fossils crumbled to dust before they reached a museum, and for decades it was treated as doubtful.

In 2022, newly published photographs suggested the main bone was the shin of a giant titanosaur, about 2 metres long. For comparison, the equivalent bone of Argentinosaurus is about 1.55 metres.

The weight. In 2023, Gregory Paul and Asier Larramendi scaled up from that leg bone and got 110 to 170 tonnes. They think the lower end, 110 to 130, is more likely, which is comparable to a fully grown female blue whale.

The catch. A 2024 review said the photos still don’t settle what the bone is. The name may also officially belong to a different animal, a meat-eater, which would leave this giant unnamed. It may be the heaviest land animal that ever lived. It may not be the animal its name says it is.

Outside the Top Five

A giant from China. A possible 60 to 80 tonne relative of Mamenchisaurus, known only from neck and skull bones. It’s too uncertain to rank, so we’ve left it out.

Puertasaurus. One of its back vertebrae is about 1.68 metres wide, even broader than Notocolossus’s. With only a few vertebrae and no limb bones, it can’t be weighed properly, but it’s thought to be in the same class as #4 and #5.

Dreadnoughtus. One of the most complete giant titanosaurs, and proof of how much method matters: 59.3 tonnes by its limb bones, but 38 tonnes at most by volume.

The one to watch. BYU 9024, a 1.38-metre neck vertebra from Colorado, may come from a Barosaurus that one informal calculation puts at around 96 tonnes. It isn’t a published estimate, but unlike #1 and #2, this bone still exists.

The mammals. The biggest land mammals, the giant rhino Paraceratherium and the straight-tusked elephant Palaeoloxodon, reached about 17 to 19 tonnes. That’s less than half the lowest estimate for #5.

Could Something Heavier Be Out There?

Probably. Blue whales have been measured in huge numbers, so the record for the sea is unlikely to move much. Sauropods are the opposite. Giant skeletons rarely fossilise, and the biggest individuals were rare, so the handful we’ve found almost certainly doesn’t include the largest that lived.

As for how they got so big, a major 2011 review found no single cause but a combination: a long neck that reached far more food, a small head that swallowed without chewing, a skeleton lightened by air-filled bones, fast growth and lots of eggs.

If the estimates for India’s lost giant are anywhere near right, the heaviest animal ever to walk on land was in the same class as the largest blue whales ever measured.

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