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New Species of Long-Necked Dinosaur Identified in Thailand
The find from a single vertebra expands the mamenchisaurid record beyond China and helps clarify sauropod diversity in Southeast Asia.
Researchers including Dr. Apirut Nilpanapan of Mahasarakham University announced the discovery of Uragasaurus kalasinensis in a study published Wednesday, July 8, 2026, in the journal Scientific Reports.
This mamenchisaurid species, the first formally named in Thailand, challenges previous understandings that this group of long-necked sauropods was almost exclusively restricted to East Asia.
Catalogued as PRC 460, the anterior dorsal vertebra features a honeycomb-like internal structure that helped reduce the giant animal's bone weight around 150 million years ago.
The find links Thailand's Phu Noi vertebrate assemblage to fossil faunas in China's Junggar and Sichuan basins, confirming the region was part of a wider, connected prehistoric landscape.
Ongoing excavations in the Phu Kradung Formation may offer further insights into how these massive sauropods diversified and dispersed across prehistoric Southeast Asia during the Late Jurassic period.
A single vertebrae discovered in a fossil site in Thailand was sufficient for researchers to identify a completely new species of huge, long-necked dinosaur that lived in the forests of South-East Asia some 143 million years ago.