Greatest dinosaur ever found in Argentina

 The most awesome creature in world history was uncovered recently in Argentina.

"Most awesome” after David Hasselhoff, that is.

The new discovery is an 85-foot-long, 65-ton dinosaur that is one of the biggest – probably the biggest – land animal in history, surpassing former Chicago Bears defensive lineman William “Refrigerator” Perry. Its weight equaled that of about a dozen African elephants and it had a 30-foot tail.

All those are great. But here’s what’s really great: The name.

Dreadnoughtus.

Perfect.

Is there a better name for an intimidating beast as long as two tractor trailers and that had a tail that could knock over your fence without knowing it (presuming it wandered your neighborhood)?

Dreadnoughtus!

I love the name.

It brings to mind the massive battleships of the early 20th century: Dreadnoughts, the massive vessels that all sides tried to rapidly build and deploy during World War I, partly to instill fear in the opposition, but mostly because military leaders liked saying the word “dreadnaught.” If you ever had the opportunity to listen to a discussion involving Marshall Philippe Petain, Gen. Black Jack Pershing and Gen. Erich Ludendorff, you would have heard the word “dreadnought” at least two or three times, followed by knowing chuckles. Because the word sounds so cool.

Dreadnought.

Now we have a massive dinosaur named dreadnoughtus – and scientists say they’ve located more than 70 percent of one animal’s bones (meaning it retains more of its original bone structure than Tom Jones or Kenny Rogers), which is more than most dinosaurs.

It’s huge and scientists say it was still growing when it died – kind of like James Dean. This dreadnoughtus was a teenager!

They also realized it was a teenager because it had acne, slouched a lot and spent far too much time texting and playing video games on his prehistoric cellphone (since the dinosaur was found in South America, we presume he used an Amazon phone).

Here’s what we know about dreadnoughtus, other than his teenager attitude problems and massive tail: He most likely spent most of his life eating – and he was a vegetarian, although it was reportedly more of a moral choice than a health choice.

If there’s one problem with this dinosaur with the greatest name in dino history (previous top five: Fukuisarus, Irrator, Khaan, Pantydraco, Supersaurus), it’s that his full name is Dreadnoughtus schrani, with the second name honoring the benefactor Adam Schran. It’s bad enough that stadiums and arenas have sponsors’ names on them, now dinosaurs do.

Full disclosure: It all started with the DailyRepublicasaurus back in the late 1990s, but still . . .

So what’s the takeaway? What’s the local angle? It’s this:

Scientists now suspect that there are plenty of other places where dinosaurs could be discovered. They thought they’d found the largest dino ever, before the team found dreadnoughtus in Argentina – so who is to say that there isn’t an opportunity for a larger animal (Super-dreadnoughtus? Mega-dreadnoughtus?) to be discovered in say . . . Rio Vista or Suisun City.

If we can find one – or suggest that we may have found one – people will come.

As they said in “Field of Dreams,” “People will most definitely come.”

When it comes time to name our dino, I’ve got the only name that would be better than dreadnoughtus.

We could find the Hasselhoffasaurus!

Reach Brad Stanhope at 427-6958 or bstanhope@dailyrepublic.net. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/bradstanhope.