Paleontologists told about the unusual dinosaur found in Argentina
Paleontologists have described a new species of giant dinosaur — Bicharracosaurus dionidei. This was reported by Science Daily on May 12.
"Our phylogenetic analysis of the skeleton shows that Bicharracosaurus dionidei was related to Brachiosaurids, making it the first Jurassic Brachiosaurid in South America," said Alexandra Reuter, a graduate student at the University of Munich and the first author of the study.
The length of the animal was about 20 m. The researchers found parts of the spine — more than 30 vertebrae of the neck, back and tail, several ribs and a fragment of the pelvis. The structure of the bones indicates that the remains belonged to an adult individual who lived about 155 million years ago on Gondwana, an ancient southern supercontinent. Among the skeletal features, scientists have identified both similarities with the Tanzanian brachiosaurid Giraffatitan and features characteristic of North American diplodocus.
The head of the study, Professor Oliver Raout, explained that knowledge about the evolution of sauropods of the Late Jurassic period has so far been based almost exclusively on finds from the Northern Hemisphere. For a long time, only one significant location was known on the southern continents — in Tanzania.
According to him, fossils from the Argentine province of Chubut provide important comparative material and allow us to continuously supplement and revise ideas about the evolutionary history of these animals, primarily in the Southern Hemisphere.
The first dinosaur remains were found on a farm by shepherd Dionida Mesa, and the species was named after him. The generic name comes from the Spanish colloquial word "bicharraco" — "big creature". The fossils are preserved at the Egidio Feruglio Paleontological Museum in Treleu, Argentina.
On March 12, Popular Science magazine reported the discovery of a new species of crocodile that could prey on human ancestors. It was named Crocodylus lucivenator and lived on the territory of modern Ethiopia about 3.4–3 million years ago. The remains were discovered in Hadar, an area famous for the discovery in 1974 of a female Australopithecus Afarensis named Lucy.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
