Paleontologists announced on Thursday that they had discovered the remains of a new giant dinosaur in Argentina, remarkable for its enormous head and small arms. This carnivore was baptized Meraxes gigas, after the name of a dragon in the television series Game of Thrones.
This predator was discovered during excavations carried out for four years in the north of Argentine Patagonia. The skull was found first, as early as 2012. ‘We won the lottery. We discovered it on the first morning of excavations, explained Peter Makovicky of the University of Minnesota, in the United States.
The skull measured more than 1.2 meters and the animal more than ten meters, for a weight of about four tons. But its upper limbs were no longer than 60 centimeters, ‘half the skull’. The animal could not use them to ‘reach its mouth’, specifies the researcher.
The team of scientists, who published the results of their research in the scientific journal Current Biology, believe that the small size of the arms gave the animal a certain advantage in survival. According to Makovicky, as the head grew larger, it became the dominant tool in their predatory arsenal, taking on the function that the upper limbs had in smaller species.
Strong arm muscles
Juan Canale, co-author of the study and project manager at the Ernesto Bachmann Museum in Neuquen, southern Argentina, goes even further. ‘I am convinced that these proportionally reduced arms had a function. The skeleton shows large muscle insertions and fully developed pectoral girdles, so the arms had strong muscles,” he explained in a statement.
‘They could use their arms for their reproductive behavior, such as holding the female during mating or supporting themselves to get up after a break or a fall.’
The Meraxes lived on land 90 to 100 million years ago, during the Cretaceous, when the region was wetter, more forested and much closer to the sea, Makovicky points out. They could live up to forty years old, an advanced age for dinosaurs. They presumably hunted sauropods living at the same time, the remains of which have been discovered at the excavation site.
With his skull full of ridges, furrows, bumps and small horns, Meraxes certainly looked very imposing. It looked like a gargoyle,” says Makovicky.
/ATS