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JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – If humans had lived 200 million years ago, they would have marveled at the greatest dinosaur of his time. This name means "a giant thunderbolt at dawn".
The newly discovered fossil of a new dinosaur species in South Africa revealed a parent of Brontosaurus who weighed 26,000 pounds, or about twice the size of a large African elephant.
Researchers have called Ledumahadi mafube, which is Sesotho for "a giant thunderbolt at dawn". Sesotho is an official South African language native to the part of the country where the dinosaur was found.
"The name reflects the large size of the animal as well as the fact that its lineage appeared at the origins of the sauropod dinosaurs," said Jonah Choiniere, author and professor of paleontology at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, in South Africa. "It honors both the recent and ancient heritage of southern Africa."
In addition to its massive size, there are other details of the evolution of new species that make it totally unique, according to a new study published Thursday in the journal Current Biology.
"This shows us that, even 200 million years ago, these animals had already become the largest vertebrates ever to have walked on Earth," said Choiniere.
Find a new dinosaur
Choiniere graduate student Blair McPhee discovered the bones of an unknown dinosaur in 2012.
"Blair told me how important he thought it was, and even showed me that some of his bones were still coming out of the rocks in the field," Choiniere said.
Over the years of excavations, the team discovered the fossil of an adult adult dinosaur, probably aged about 14 years when he died.
Ledumahadi was a close relative of sauropod dinosaurs, such as brontosaurus and others who ate plants and walked on all fours. But the fossil shows that it has evolved earlier and independently of the sauropods.
The sauropods had a posture and thick limbs resembling columns that look a lot like elephants. But they evolved from ancestors who walked mainly on two legs. Adapting to crawling has allowed sauropods to grow and support the digestive process necessary for their herbivorous diet.
The researchers believe that Ledumahadi was a transition dinosaur, an actual evolutionary experience in early Jurassic times. The forelegs of this dinosaur are more "crouching", while being very thick to support his giant body.
"The first thing that struck me about this animal is the incredible sturdiness of the limb bones," said McPhee, lead author of the study. "It was similar in size to the gigantic sauropod dinosaurs, but while the arms and legs of these animals are usually quite thin, the Ledumahadi are incredibly thick."
The researchers wanted to know if this dinosaur was walking on two or four legs, so they developed a new method to test it. They compiled data on dinosaurs, animals and reptiles that walked on two or four legs, including measurements and thickness of the legs. Comparing fossil data with this dataset allowed them to determine Ledumahadi's posture.
Although the method helped them determine that Ledumahadi was on all fours, it also revealed that other dinosaurs similar to the beginning were also trying to crawl.
"The evolution of sauropods is not as simple as we thought before," Choiniere said. "It seems that sauropodomorphs evolved at least twice with four-legged postures before they could walk with straight limbs, which no doubt contributed to their success in an evolutionary sense."
The location is the key
The newly discovered dinosaur is a close relative of gigantic dinosaurs that lived in the same period in Argentina, which confirms the idea that all continents were still assembled under the name of Pangea, a supercontinent made up of most of Lower Jurassic. .
"It shows how easily dinosaurs could travel from Johannesburg to Buenos Aires at that time," said Choiniere.
When he traveled the country 200 million years ago, Ledumahadi lived in the Free State Province of South Africa, but he seemed very different. Instead of the present mountainous area, the land was flat and semi-arid, with shallow streams that could easily dry out.
And Ledumahadi was only one of the many species of dinosaurs in the area.
"There was a flourishing ecosystem of dinosaurs in South Africa, at the bottom of the world, with 12-ton giants like Ledumahadi, tiny carnivores like Megapnosaurus, the first mammals, some of the first turtles, and so on. .
He and his team continue to search for fossils in South Africa from the Triassic and Jurassic periods.
Ledumahadi also adds to the list of remarkable discoveries made in South Africa.
"Not only does our country hold the cradle of humanity, but we also have fossils that help us understand the appearance of the gigantic dinosaurs," said South Africa's Minister of Science and Technology Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane. "This is yet another example of South Africa taking the lead and making scientific breakthroughs of international significance based on its geographical advantage, such as in astronomy, marine and polar research, indigenous knowledge and science. biodiversity.
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