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SANTIAGO – Scientists in the Atacama Desert in Chile have unearthed the fossil remains of a so-called “flying dragon”, a Jurassic-era dinosaur previously known only in the northern hemisphere.
The flying reptile belonged to a group of the first pterosaurs that roamed the earth 160 million years ago. It had a long, pointed tail, sharp wings and teeth pointing outward.
The fossil remains of the beast were discovered by Osvaldo Rojas, director of the Museum of Natural History and Culture of the Atacama Desert, and then further studied by scientists at the University of Chile.
Details of the discovery, the first connecting such creatures to the southern hemisphere, have been published in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica.
“This shows that the distribution of animals in this group was wider than what was known so far,” said Jhonatan Alarcon, a scientist from the University of Chile who led the investigation.
The find points to strong ties and possible migration between the northern and southern hemispheres at a time when most of the southern landmasses of the globe were believed to be linked in a supercontinent called Gondwana.
“There are also pterosaurs from this group in Cuba, which were apparently coastal animals, so most likely they migrated between north and south or maybe they came once and stayed, we don’t know. “said Alarcon.
Chile’s vast Atacama Desert, once largely submerged under the Pacific Ocean, is now a lunar landscape of sand and stone.
The region, parts of which have not seen rain for decades, is a hotspot for fossil finds, with many remains intact in remote areas not far from the desert surface.
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