'Dragon Fossil & # 39; found in China to rewrite EVOLUTION | Science | New



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Scientists have announced the new species of dinosaur named Lingwulong shenqi.

The translation of this gigantic herbivore is "Lingwui's Amazing Dragon" – the region in China where fossils have been found.

The dinosaur, which is thought to be about 57 feet (17.5 meters) long, that he is a close relative of other nice giants, including Diplodocus and the Brontosaurus, and that it would have been part of the sauropod family

. the Lingwulongs, according to the study published in the journal Nature Communications

What is significant about the results, it is that it would mean that the sauropods, which were thought to have emerged there 160 million years ago, evolved 15 million years

The co-author of the study, Paul Upchurch, paleontologist at University College London, said: "Previously, we thought that all these advanced sauropods came from about 160 million people. years ago and quickly diversified and spread across the planet in a time window perhaps as short as five million years ago. "However, the discovery of Lingwulong means that this assumption is incorrect and we must work with the idea that, in fact, this group and its main constituent lineages appeared earlier and more gradually."

Lingwulongs would have lived in a warm and humid environment that would have been full of vegetation, according to the main author Xing Xu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences

They would have fed on plants like conifers and ferns, and as their the neck would not be as long as the other sauropods, he probably would have grazed on low, soft plants with stump-like teeth

. many were found together, the researchers concluded that lingwulongs were herd animals.

Previously, there was no other discovery of sauropods in East Asia as it is thought that they evolved after Pangea – a former super conti But as Dr. Xu does note: "Our findings indicate that East Asia was still connected to other continents at the time."

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