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A team of researchers discovered the remains of a giant dinosaur, the oldest, who lived more than 200 million years ago, in a paleontological site in the west of the island. Argentina, reported Monday a scientific source. The species, called Ingenia prima, is about three times larger than the largest Triassic dinosaurs and was found in 2015 at the Balde de Leyes deposit in the province of San Juan, 1100 km to the west. from Buenos Aires.
The discovery was published Monday in the specialized magazine Nature Ecology & Evolution and made public in Argentina by the Scientific Broadcasting Agency (CTyS) of the National University of La Matanza
"As soon as we found it we told ourselves it was something different, we found a way, the first to be giant, among all the dinosaurs, that's the novelty, "says Cecilia Apaldetti , researcher at the Institute and Museum of Natural Sciences of the University of San Juan (IMCN) and Conicet (National Council for Scientific and Technical Research)
The researchers found some vertebrae of the neck and of the tail, bones of the forelegs and parts of the hind paws.
According to Apaldetti, co-author of the study, The Species "shows an unknown growth strategy up to present and indicates that the origin of gigantism has appeared much earlier than previously thought. " They are "quadruped herbivorous dinosaurs that are easily distinguished by their very long neck and very long tail, belonging to the sauropod group," he said.
Read also: The new National Museum of Natural History will have space to expose even the dinosaur skeleton
Until this discovery, it was considered that gigantism had emerged at during the Jurassic period, about 180 million years ago. Researcher Ricardo Martínez, also co-author of the book, said that "Ingenia prima date" of a very high Triassic Superior, probably 205 million years ".
The team works at the Triassic level, a time when it was just beginning to appear dinosaurs. The first ones were small, but they evolved towards gigantism to defend themselves against the predators.
According to scientists, Ingenia prima is the first dinosaur to reach gigantism and although it is far from 70 tons, sauropods weigh heavier. Great at the end of the Cretaceous, the speed of bone tissue accumulation was greater than the species of its time and the largest giants that inhabited Patagonia, in southern Argentina.
Cyclic growth
This species had cyclical seasonal growth, with a different type of tissue from other sauropods, which allowed for very rapid growth.
It is estimated that the species reached between 8 and 10 meters, since the found specimen measured between 6 and 10 and 7 meters, it was juvenile and was still developing. And that it weighed about 10 tons, which equates to two or three African elephants.
Another feature of the species is the existence of "pneumatic cavities" in the bones that lightened the weight and would have promoted its growth, explains the work. ] The dinosaur was found in the Bucket of Laws field, in San Juan, discovered in 2001 and of which hundreds of specimens were mined in 2014. The site, of several thousand hectares, was a kind of savannah at the end of Triassic
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