A team of paleontologists has discovered the remains of a previously unknown species of dinosaur in Argentina. According to the researchers, it dates from the Cretaceous period and was on Earth between 97 million and 94 million years ago.
In
the scientific article published last week, experts say the remains could represent an entire lineage of armored dinosaurs in the Southern Hemisphere, previously unknown. Baptized Jakapil kaniukura, this dinosaur would be related to thyreophores, such as Stegosaurus and Ankylosaurus. It had disc-shaped bony scales along its neck, back, and tail.
The weight of a cat
Although it is only at the beginning of its study, the team has already made several discoveries: Jakapil kaniukura would be bipedal and tiny, about 1.5 m long and a weight equivalent to that of a domestic cat . This dinosaur is said to be a herbivore with leaf-shaped teeth similar to those of its relative Stegosaurus.
Gabriel Díaz Yantén, a Chilean paleoartist and paleontology student at the National University of Río Negro created a computer representation (below) of what the Jakapil kaniukura might have looked like.
The remains were discovered in the province of Río Negro, in northern Patagonia, by a team of international paleontologists from the Félix de Azara Natural History Foundation, in Argentina. In their paper, the scientists believe that these remains represent the ”
first definitive species of thyreophores from Argentine Patagonia
» and show «
that early thyreophores had a much wider geographic distribution than previously thought.
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CNET.com article adapted by CNETFrance
Image: Gabriel Diaz Yanten