A group of Brazilian researchers found the fossil of a dinosaur 233 million years old in Rio Grande do Sul, one of the oldest discovered in the world and which was exposed after the serious floods May in the region.
The fossil, which is more than two metres long and almost complete, was found in São João de Polêsine by a group of six researchers from the Center for Support for Paleontological Research of the Fourth Colony (Cappa) of the University of Santa María.
As he explained to EFE on Tuesday Rodrigo Mullera paleontologist who is part of the group, the remains were exposed after heavy rains caused devastating floods throughout Rio Grande do Sul.
“The rains accelerated the erosion process, which allowed us to discover the fossil. However, the parts that remained visible, such as the hip and part of the leg, were beginning to be damaged.”Müller explained.
This paleontologist says that it was a “surprising discovery,” since they extracted a rock with several exposed remains and, upon transferring it to the laboratory, they discovered that it was an almost complete and large specimen.
Dating back 233 million years, the fossil dates back to the Triassic period, when the continents were still joined together in Pangea and dinosaurs were just beginning to emerge.
Müller noted that it is also the second most complete fossil ever discovered of the Herrerasauridae family, one of the first groups of dinosaurs to appear in evolutionary history.
(University of Santa Maria)
In the coming months, researchers will begin a study that will help them determine what specific species it is and even whether they have discovered a previously unknown type of dinosaur.
“Because it is a very complete fossil, we will be able to obtain a lot of information about its anatomy and thus better understand how the evolution of dinosaurs took place,” the paleontologist declared.
In this regard, he stressed that the skull is in an optimal state of preservation, so a CT scan will be performed to study what the brain might have been like.
And this was not the only discovery made by the researchers, who claim to have found around ten fossils in several of the areas they monitored after the storm, which left nearly 200 dead and 2.5 million homeless.
In this case, they are synapsids and archosaurs, which would be the direct ancestors of mammals and crocodiles, and primitive dinosaurs, respectively.