Sethapanichsakul, a self-confessed “dinosaur kid”, said in a UCL press release that the study also “fulfils a childhood promise of naming a dinosaur”.
The nagatitan is the 14th dinosaur to be named in Thailand. Palaeontologist Dr Sita Manitkoon, from Mahasarakham University, said that the country has a high diversity in dinosaur fossils and is “possibly the third most abundant in Asia in terms of dinosaur remains”.
The nagatitan roamed Earth when the planet’s atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were rising in line with high global temperatures.
The study’s co-author, UCL’s Prof Paul Upchurch, said the sauropod family of dinosaurs had become quite large at this time, telling National Geographic: “It seems a little odd that sauropods were able to cope with higher temperature conditions”, as large bodies retain heat and are harder to cool down.
He told the Reuters news agency that it was “likely that the high temperatures had an impact on the plant fodder that was important to sauropods, which were very large-bodied herbivores”.
