Argentinosaurus
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40 free Argentinosaurus trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Argentinosaurus is a contender for the biggest animal ever to walk on land, and scientists still argue over exactly how big it was. That mix of record-breaking size and open questions makes it one of the most talked-about dinosaurs of all. These Argentinosaurus fun facts come as a quiz. The questions cover the accidental discovery and the people who named it, the measurements scientists have worked out, how it grew, moved and stayed in one piece, the hunters and rival giants that shared its story, and its appearances on screen and in museums. It works for kids who love dinosaurs, for parents and teachers planning a lesson, and for anyone who wants fun facts about the Argentinosaurus that hold up. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still teaches something.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What did farmer Guillermo Heredia think he had found when he uncovered the first Argentinosaurus bone on his land?
A petrified log
A petrified log was Heredia's first guess, so he reported the find to the local museum. Its staff dug out a leg bone about 1.55 metres long.
Q 02Which living animal is far heavier than even Argentinosaurus ever was?
Blue whale
Blue whale adults can weigh more than 150 tonnes, so even this giant of the land was far lighter than a creature alive today.
Q 03Despite its record-breaking adult size, a newly hatched Argentinosaurus probably weighed no more than what?
About 5 kg
About 5 kg is the most a hatchling is thought to have weighed. Giants like this multiplied their size around 100,000 times as they grew, more than any other amniote.
Q 04A 2013 computer simulation of a walking Argentinosaurus put the giant dinosaur's top speed at roughly what?
About 5 mph
About 5 mph was the model's limit, just over two metres per second. The virtual skeleton learned to walk through machine learning that searched for the least tiring movements.
Q 05Argentinosaurus belonged to which major dinosaur group, known for long necks, long tails and four pillar-like legs?
Sauropods
Sauropods include the longest and heaviest dinosaurs ever found. Argentinosaurus sat in a late branch called the titanosaurs, the last of the group to die out.
Q 06The 'saurus' ending of the name Argentinosaurus comes from an ancient word for which kind of animal?
Lizard
Lizard is the meaning of the ending, so the full name reads as Argentine lizard. Its namers chose it in 1993 to honour the country where the bones were found.
Q 07Argentinosaurus fossils come from which region of Argentina, famous for its giant dinosaurs?
Patagonia
Patagonia has produced several of the biggest dinosaurs ever found, plant-eaters and predators alike. Argentinosaurus came from sandstone in the north of the region.
Q 08Argentinosaurus lived during which geological period, the last chapter of the age of dinosaurs?
Cretaceous
Cretaceous rocks hold every known Argentinosaurus bone. By then flowering plants had appeared, and their pollen turns up in the same rock formation as the giant.
Q 09Film crews recreating the world of Argentinosaurus for the BBC special Land of Giants had to avoid which plant?
Grass
Grass was off limits because the producers wanted a landscape from before it had evolved. They filmed on lava slopes in Tenerife and on Australia's Fraser Island.
Q 10What filled the honeycomb of chambers inside the huge back bones of Argentinosaurus and its giant relatives?
Air
Air filled the many small chambers, a weight-saving design most developed in the largest long-necked dinosaurs. One single back bone stood about 1.59 metres tall.
Q 11Roughly how long was Argentinosaurus from snout to tail tip, according to most modern estimates?
About 35 metres
About 35 metres is the usual figure, though some reconstructions stop at 30. With no neck or tail bones found, the length is scaled up from smaller relatives.
Q 12Modern estimates put the body weight of a full-grown Argentinosaurus at roughly what figure?
About 70 tonnes
About 70 tonnes sits in the middle of the usual range, which runs from 65 to 80. That is the heaviest figure for any land animal known from good fossil material.
Q 13Which giant meat-eater, found as at least seven individuals in one bonebed, may have hunted Argentinosaurus in packs?
Mapusaurus
Q 21Which fossil hunter, dubbed the 'Master of the Mesozoic', led the 1989 dig and co-named Argentinosaurus?
José Bonaparte
José Bonaparte had no formal training in palaeontology, yet he described more than twenty prehistoric animals. He was the son of an Italian sailor, with no close link to Napoleon's family.
Q 22The palaeontologist who led the Argentinosaurus dig also named which predator with two horns above its eyes?
Carnotaurus
Carnotaurus means 'meat-eating bull', a nod to its bull-like horns. Its only skeleton was dug up in 1984 by the same expedition leader.
Q 23Which US city's Fernbank Museum displays a 123-foot Argentinosaurus skeleton in its atrium?
Atlanta
Mapusaurus shared the same rock formation as Argentinosaurus and grew to ten metres or more. Whether the group hunted as an organised pack or simply mobbed its prey is unknown.
Q 14In the BBC special Land of Giants, which huge predator does the presenter watch hunting Argentinosaurus?
Giganotosaurus
Giganotosaurus is the hunter the time-travelling zoologist tracks down. Its real bones come from an older rock layer, lying just beneath the one that holds Argentinosaurus.
Q 15Which wildlife presenter played the time-travelling zoologist who tracks Argentinosaurus in Land of Giants?
Nigel Marven
Nigel Marven was added so viewers could judge the animals' scale against a person. The role earned him a Royal Television Society nomination for best factual presenter.
Q 16Which fossil assigned to Argentinosaurus is more than eight feet long, with a shaft over a yard around?
Thigh bone
A thigh bone credited to the giant is 2.5 metres long and more than a metre around. Experts still debate whether it truly belongs to Argentinosaurus.
Q 17Dreadnoughtus, a giant often compared with Argentinosaurus, was named after an early twentieth-century type of what?
Battleship
Battleship fits a name meaning 'fears nothing'. Its discoverer wanted plant-eaters to get their due as the toughest creatures in their environment.
Q 18Titanosaurs, the group that includes Argentinosaurus, take their name from giants of which ancient mythology?
Greek
Greek myth supplied the Titans, by way of a dinosaur called Titanosaurus. The group was so widespread that its fossils turn up on every continent, Antarctica included.
Q 19To eat fast enough, what did giants like Argentinosaurus do with each mouthful?
Swallowed it without chewing
Swallowed it without chewing, so each mouthful went down quickly and was broken down during a long stay in the gut. A long neck let the animal reach more food without moving.
Q 20Argentinosaurus sits at the heavy end of the dinosaur size range; which living bird sits at the lightest?
Bee hummingbird
Bee hummingbird adults weigh only two or three grams, and birds count as living dinosaurs. The Cuban species is the smallest bird alive, and so the smallest known dinosaur.
Atlanta is home to Giants of the Mesozoic, where the mounted giant is posed with a huge predator in a glass-walled atrium overlooking old-growth forest.
Q 24The rock encasing the first Argentinosaurus skeleton was so hard that excavators had to use which tools?
Pneumatic hammers
Pneumatic hammers freed the remains, which included seven back vertebrae and part of the hips. All of them came from a single animal and went to the town museum.
Q 25The species name of Argentinosaurus honours which desert oil town close to the farm where it was found?
Plaza Huincul
Plaza Huincul gave Argentinosaurus huinculensis its second name, and its museum keeps the original bones. The town grew up after oil was struck there in 1918.
Q 26Which whip-tailed North American dinosaur may have been even longer than Argentinosaurus while weighing far less?
Supersaurus
Supersaurus belonged to the slender diplodocid family, whose whip-like tails added length without much weight. Some estimates stretch it to 39 metres.
Q 27Bruhathkayosaurus, a mysterious giant that may have outweighed Argentinosaurus, was dug up in which country?
India
India's monsoon-soaked site left the bones so crumbly that they began falling apart in transit and no longer exist. Only old photographs and descriptions remain, so its true size is disputed.
Q 28A vast fossil site in the same province as Argentinosaurus is famous for which titanosaur remains?
Eggs with embryos
Eggs with embryos fill the vast nesting ground at Auca Mahuevo, the remains of a titanosaur hatchery. Its discoverers were looking for fossil birds when they found it in 1997.
Q 29In the age of Argentinosaurus, its home continent was pulling away from which southern supercontinent?
Gondwana
Gondwana's break-up left southern dinosaurs to evolve apart from northern ones. That isolation is why Argentine fossils looked so strange to scientists used to northern species.
Q 30Saltasaurus, a smaller cousin of Argentinosaurus, surprised scientists as the first of its kind found with what?
Bony armour
Bony armour, in the form of small plates set in the skin, turned up with the skeleton. Earlier finds of such plates had been credited to a different kind of dinosaur entirely.