According to Live Science, paleontologists found the fossils near a deposit in the municipality of San Juan do Polesino in May on July 17, The Associated Press reported.
The team says the dinosaur, whose species has not been officially identified, is around 233 million years old. years old and belonged to a family of Triassic predators called Herrerasauridae.
Scientists still debate the earliest known remains of dinosaurs. The oldest undisputed dinosaur fossils date to about 231 million years ago. years old and includes bones from several different groups, including the Herrerasauridae. But there are also older fossils of a disputed dinosaur called Nyasasaurus – which lived around 240 million years ago. years.
According to the Brazilian news agency Agência Brasil, the skeleton of the newly discovered dinosaur is almost completely preserved. If the copy is indeed 233 million. year-old hererasaurid, it will help scientists decipher the base of the dinosaur family tree.
“This is one of the oldest finds in the world” and is likely to help “understand the origin of dinosaurs,” Rodrigo Temp Müller, a paleontologist at the Federal University of Santa Maria in Brazil who led the excavations, told Agência Brasil.
The fossils will help scientists better understand the first wave of predatory dinosaurs that took over the top of the food chain, he said. This individual may have been about 2.5 meters long, but other individuals of its species may have been even larger.
“It’s a carnivorous biped, so it walked on its hind legs and probably had free front paws to tackle prey,” says RTMüller. In his opinion, it cannot be said that he had reached the maximum size.
“Although it was 2.5 m long, some individuals of this group could reach five or six meters,” added RTMüller.
He and his colleagues discovered the fossils after rains in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. The region experienced record rainfall earlier this year, triggering flooding that killed at least 182 people, The Associated Press reported.
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2024-08-05 05:34:52
