Russia SHOCK DISCOVERY: New species of DINOSAUR revealed after bones found on cliff

The giant fossil has been called Volgatitan, with scientists confirming it belonged to the herbivore family and had a long neck similar to a brontosaurus, but called sauropods. The beast was identified through seven of its vertebrae, which had been stuck inside a cliff for more than 130million years before erosion washed the bones up on the banks of the Volga river near Ulyanovsk, west Russia, in 1982. When more of the vertebrae fell from the cliff when its limestone broke away it enabled the discovery to be identified as “giant vertebrae of unknown taxonomic affiliation” in 1997. Now 21 years on, the bones were re-examined by experts after being sat in a lab in Russia gathering dust.

Dr Alexander Averianov of the Russian Academy of Sciences told Fox News: “The fossils come from a cliff of marine sediments which are rich in invertebrate fossils such as ammonite and bones of marine reptiles.”

Speaking about his work, he added: “I started my work on sauropods quite recently, published on sauropod remains from the Late Cretaceous of Uzbekistan and describing the first sauropod taxa from Russia, Tengrisaurus and Sibirotitan, in 2017 and 2018 respectively.

“I decided to also study the fossils reported by Efimov and visited his museum in July 2017 and examined the fossils.”

Dr Averianov said after inspecting the bones he was stunned by their unusual morphology.

He said: “Checking the literature when I returned home, I confirmed that this is a new taxon of titanosaurian sauropods.”

Titanosaurs were the last surviving dinosaurs with long necks and were some of the largest land mammals to have roamed the earth.

Their evolution took place mainly in South America, meaning some of their early development may have taken place in Europe and Russia.

Dr Averianov said: “The largest members of this lineage reached 50-70 tonnes, but they lived much later, in the Late Cretaceous period.

“Volgatitan is one of the oldest titanosaurian sauropods which lived in the beginning of the Early Cretaceous period, some 130 million years ago. However, it is quite large comparative to other earliest Cretaceous sauropods.”

Dinosaurs were wiped out more than 66million years ago, but how it happened remains a mystery to this day.

Theories suggest an asteroid caused their extinction, or a volcano.

Many believe an ice age may have been responsible.