On the beach of San Carlos, in the city of Mar del Plata, two boys aged 9 and 11 found fossil remains of an extinct animal who inhabited the earth at the time of the Ice Age. This is the second discovery made by children in less than a month and fossil discoveries in Argentina multiply.
The remains belong to a gliptodontea species of giant terrestrial armadillo from 5 million years old, according to the team from the Paleontology Laboratory of the Municipal Museum of Natural Sciences Lorenzo Scaglia, who participated in the rescue.
This animal belongs to the species Plohophorus figuratus and the finding was the responsibility of Bautista and mine with his father Martín Aceña. When they realized what they had found, they notified the Lorenzo Scaglia Museum, so professionals and students approached the place where part of the animal’s tail was found.
With the participation of specialists, other pieces of the animal were recovered: caudal tube and rings (outer part of tail), vertebrae, and some dorsal carapace plateshe. The tube and caudal rings of a glyptodon “are among the most beautiful pieces of glyptodons, which can show different ornamental patterns, which in the case of Plohophorus, stand out the rosettes composed of large, well-rounded figures surrounded by smaller polygonal figures.” , highlighted paleontologists from the Lorenzo Scaglia Museum.
“These rings allowed the glyptodonts to give their tail mobility, and thus manipulate their medieval club to defend themselves.”, they explained. “Generally, the community believes that the findings contemplate finding the complete structure of the skeleton of the specimen, when in reality it is about parts or sections of it,” the professionals clarified.
“Finding a complete skeleton of any animal is extremely improbable and generally between one finding and another we are completing a puzzle,” they concluded.
A girl found remains of two glyptodonts in Chapadmalal
Emilia, 9 years old, was walking on the beach with her family and noticed some small white dots on the sand. For this very reason, she called her parents to tell them about her discovery. Seeing that it was the remains of a prehistoric animal, the adults immediately called the Lorenzo Scaglia Municipal Museum of Natural Sciences.
“We went for a glyptodon and they quickly became two, plus a large number of rodent remains scattered in the place that are very good indicators of the age of the deposits and the environments that existed in the past”, the Museum pointed out.
RB MCP
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