The discovery of giant fossils in Argentina will give clues to the evolution of dinosaurs | Society

CAUCETE, Argentina (Reuters) – The discovery in Argentina of giant fossils of the oldest dinosaur will give new clues about the evolution of these reptiles, as it shows that gigantism has appeared tens of millions of years ago. 39 years before it was believed, the paleontologists who made the discovery told Reuters.

The Ingentia Prima , whose discovery took place in 2015 in northwestern Argentina, but which was published this month, lived about 210 million years ago during the Tribadic period, some 30 million years before the Jurbadic, when scientists thought that the first giant dinosaurs had appeared.

"There existed in the Tribadic a group of dinosaurs that was able to become giant, to become huge, at a time when no one was and on an evolutionary path different from that of the greatest known dinosaurs", explains Cecilia. Apaldetti, paleontologist and lead author of the study published two weeks ago in the journal Nature.

Ricardo Martínez, co-author of the study, said that the herbivore Ingentia Prima – whose name means "first giant" – weighed more than 10 tons, while its larger counterparts who were previously known did not exceed 3 tons.

Of the two partial skeletons found in the Argentine province of San Juan, is a complete femur of the Ingentia that measures 1.3 meters, about three times the size of those of the largest living beings known to l & # 39; era.

Martínez, who, as Apaldetti is a researcher at the National Council of Scientific and Technical Research of Argentina (CONICET), explained that the large size of Ingentia, added to his long neck, allowed him to feed on plants to which others The dinosaurs could not reach.

Dinosaurs first appeared in the Tribadic, about 230 million years ago. These had a moderate size, far from the immense creatures of the subsequent Jurbadic and Cretaceous periods.

Ingentia was discovered in the Balde Formation of Leyes, in the south of San Juan province, and the researchers claim that soon they will be able to completely rebuild their skeleton to expose it. .

"This site will allow us to see something that until now is not clear anywhere in the world, and what happened at the end of the Tribadic and early Jurbadic, where all the animals on Earth were affected by one of the great mbad extinctions that took place throughout the evolution, "Martinez said.

Ingentia was one of the first members of a group of dinosaurs called "sauropods," who later included the greatest terrestrial creatures on Earth, including the Argentinean giants of Patagonia called Argentinosaurus, Dreadnoughtus. and Patagotitan