A scientific study has broadened the perspective of the fascinating diversity of dinosaurs and birds that inhabited Patagonia during the Late Cretaceous, before the great dinosaurs became extinct.
At a site in Río de las Chinas, in Chile, fossils were found that represent the first record of theropods in that area of Patagonia.. This is a group of dinosaurs that includes both modern birds and their closest non-avian relatives.
The researchers’ finds include giant megaraptors with large sickle-shaped claws and birds from the group that also includes today’s modern species.
“The fauna of Patagonia before the mass extinction was really diverse”, said scientist Sarah Davis, from the Jackson School of Geosciences, at the University of Texas at Austin, in the United States. The variety was given by large theropod carnivores, smaller carnivores, groups of birds, reptiles and small mammals, among other living beings.
“Although we discovered a lot of isolated material from Río de Las Chinas, we did not find enough associated material to name a new species. We found megaraptor and unilaginous teeth, as well as bird bones.”he claimed.
“We hope that future work in this locality will allow us to discover more bones of these animals, and then we will be able to determine if they are new species. We believe that some of the theropods that we found are unique with respect to the findings in Argentina, but until we have more fossils from both locations we will not be able to confirm it with certainty”, he clarified.
The researchers found remains of two groups of birds: the orniturines and the enantiornites. The orniturines are a group that includes all birds living today, the only dinosaurs to survive the mass extinction 65 million years ago.
The orniturine, represented by an isolated partial scapula, appears to be similar to a bird found in the Late Cretaceous of Antarctica. The “enantiornite” might be a unique species, but we need more fossils from both Chile and Argentina to determine it, explained the scientist. The study was published in the Journal of South American Earth Sciences.
The end of the great dinosaurs 66.7 million years ago was due to a massive event that caused the extinction of all non-avian dinosaurs, the expert recalled.
“The mass extinction occurred worldwide, it was not only in Patagonia. It is believed that the extinction was due to the collision of a large meteorite in the Yucatan peninsula and increased volcanism in the present territory of IndiaDavis said.
These factors caused drastic changes in the Earth’s climate. “There were temperature fluctuations, ocean chemistry changes, massive wildfires, and much more. All of that ended up causing the collapse of ecosystems and the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs,” he commented.
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