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Scientists in Argentina have unearthed the stays of a beforehand unknown species of meat-eating dinosaur that lived about 70m years in the past that had puny arms and will have used its highly effective head to ram its prey.
The fossil cranium of the Cretaceous interval dinosaur, named Guemesia ochoai, was found in Argentina’s north-western Salta province. The researchers mentioned it probably belongs to a carnivorous group of dinosaurs referred to as abelisaurs, which walked on two legs and possessed solely stub-like arms, even shorter than these of North America’s Tyrannosaurus rex.
The brief arms might have pressured Guemesia to depend on its highly effective cranium and jaws, the researchers mentioned.
“It’s so distinctive and so completely different from different carnivorous dinosaurs, which permits us to grasp that we’re coping with a completely new species,” Federico Agnolin, lead writer of a research on the dinosaur printed within the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology and a researcher with Argentine nationwide science council Coincet, advised Reuters.
The animal, attainable a juvenile, lived only a few million years earlier than an asteroid influence at what’s now Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula worn out about three-quarters of Earth’s species together with the dinosaurs about 66m years in the past.
Scientists imagine abelisaurs roamed what’s now Africa, South America and India, and a number of other dozen specimens have beforehand been dug up in Argentina – almost all of them in southern Patagonia, removed from the location of Guemesia’s discovery.
“We all know it had a really sharp sense of scent and was short-sighted,” mentioned Agnolin, noting that it could have walked upright on its massive ft, with its strong skull main the best way.
“Some scientists assume that would imply the animal hunted its prey by charging them with its head,” Agnolin added.
The invention provides to Argentina’s fame as a treasure trove of fossils of dinosaurs and different prehistoric creatures.
Guemesia takes its title from Argentine independence hero Martin Miguel de Guemes and Javier Ochoa, a museum employee who made the invention.
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