Paleontologists have discovered 80% of dinosaur skeletons.
Santiago:
Chilean paleontologists on Wednesday presented their findings of a dinosaur discovered three years ago in Patagonia that they say had a very unusual tail that has puzzled researchers .
The remains of Stegouros elengassen were discovered during excavations in 2018 at Cerro Guido, a site known for its abundance of fossils, by a team that believes they are dealing with a dinosaur that has been discovered. known until they examined its tail.
“That was the main surprise,” said Alexander Vargas, one of the paleontologists. “This structure is absolutely amazing.”
“The tail is covered with seven pairs of bones … creating a weapon completely different from anything we know of in any dinosaur,” the researcher added.
The skeletons – structures of bony plates located in the dermis of the skin – are lined up on either side of the tail, making it resemble a large fern.
Paleontologists have discovered 80% of dinosaur skeletons and estimate that this animal lived in this area 71 to 74.9 million years ago. It is about two meters (nearly seven feet) long, weighs 150 kilograms (330 pounds), and is a herbivore.
According to the scientists, who have published their study in the journal Nature, the animal may represent a previously unknown line of armored dinosaurs not seen in the Southern Hemisphere but have been identified in the northern part of the continent.
“We don’t know why (the tail) evolved,” said Sergio Soto, another member of the team. “We know that within groups of armored dinosaurs there seems to be a tendency to independently develop defense mechanisms. bone-epidermal defense”.
The Cerro Guido region, in the Las Chinas valley 3,000 km (1,800 mi) south of Santiago, stretches for 15 km. Various rock outcrops contain many fossils.
The discovery there allowed scientists to surmise that the Americas and present-day Antarctica were close together millions of years ago.
“There is strong evidence that there is a biogeographic connection to other parts of the planet, in this case Antarctica and Australia, because we have two species of armored dinosaurs in the ocean,” Soto said. It is closely related to each other”.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from an aggregated feed.)
