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July 24, 2018 – 12:04
Photo: Conicet
The discovery in Argentina of fossils of the oldest known giant dinosaur will give new clues about the evolution of these reptiles, since it shows that gigantism has appeared tens of millions of years earlier than previously thought, the paleontologists who made this discovery told Reuters:
The Ingentia Prima, discovered in 2015 in the north-west from Argentina, was published about 210 million years ago. during the Triassic, some 30 million years before the Jurassic, when scientists thought that the first giant dinosaurs had appeared.
"There was in the Triassic a group of dinosaurs that was able to become giant, to become huge, a time when no one was there and by a different path of evolution than the one borrowed by the greatest known dinosaurs, "explained Cecilia Apaldetti, paleontologist and to the main author of the study published two weeks ago in the journal Nature
Ricardo Martínez, co-author of the l '; study, said that the herbivore Ingentia Prima – whose name means "first giant" – weighed more than 10 tons The largest one previously known did not exceed 3 tons
Of the two partial skeletons found in the province Argentine of San Juan, is a complete femur of the Ingentia measuring 1.3 meters, about three times the size of
Martínez, who, as Apaldetti is a researcher at the National Council of Scientific and Technical Research of the Argentina (CONICET), explained that the Ingentia's size, added to his long neck, allowed him to feed on plants that other dinosaurs could not reach.
Dinosaurs first appeared in the Triassic, about 230 million years ago. These were of moderate size, far from the huge creatures of subsequent Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.
Ingentia was discovered in the Balde Formation of Leyes, south of the San Juan Province, and the researchers assure that Briefly, they will be able to completely rebuild their skeleton to exhibit 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 Triassic and early Jurassic. , where all the animals on Earth were affected by one of the great mass extinctions that took place throughout the evolution, "said Martinez
Ingentia was one first members of a group of dinosaurs called "sauropods" which later included the largest terrestrial creatures on Earth, among them the Argentinean giants of Patagonia called Argentinosaurus, Dreadnoughtus and Patagotitan. [1] 9659014] [19659014] Cecilia Apaldetti, researcher of #CONICET and senior author of the book published in #Nature presents #Ingentiaprima the first giant dinosaur known to date discovered in #SanJuan #Argentina Full video ???https: //t.co/pRkrcPqGYS pic.twitter.com/zNKy3qc4Uv
– CONICET Dialoga (@CONICETDialoga) July 23, 2018
Reuters
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