Paleontologists said on Thursday that they had discovered a new giant carnivorous dinosaur species who had large heads and small arms, such as Tyrannosaurus Rex. The findings of the researchers, published in the journal Current Biology, showed that small forelimbs was not an evolutionary accident, but rather gave apex predator at the time of the excellence of certain survival.
MERAXES GIGAS – Named Naga Fiction in the Game of Thrones book series – dug up for four years during the field expedition in the North Patagonia region of Argentina, starting with the skull found in 2012.”We won the lottery and found it literally on the first morning,” said senior writer Peter Makovicky of the University of Minnesota.
The remaining fossils are very well maintained. The skull is only more than four legs (127 centimeters), while all animals will have a length of about 36 feet, and weigh four metric tons.His arms are two legs long, “So it is literally half a long skull and the animal will not be able to reach its mouth,” Macovicky said.
T. Rex did not get his small arm from M. Gigas. The latter is extinct 20 million years before the first appeared, and the second species was far apart in the evolutionary tree.Conversely, the authors believe the fact that tyrannosaurids, carcharodontosaurids – Meraxes group belongs to – and the third giant predator species called Abelisaurids All small arms that evolve refers to certain benefits.
Makovicky believes that when their heads grow bigger, it becomes the dominant tool of their predator warehouse, taking the function that Forelimb will have in smaller species.The author of the author Juan Canale, the main actor of the project at Ernesto Bachmann Paleontological Museum at Neuquen, Argentina, went further in suggesting other benefits.”I am sure that proportional tiny arms have a kind of function. The skeleton shows a large muscle insertion and a fully developed chest belt, so that the arms have strong muscles, “he said in a statement. They might use arms for reproductive behavior such as holding women during mating or supporting themselves to stand back after resting. or fall. “
Merax roaming on earth between 90 to 100 million years ago during Cretaceous, when the region was more wet, more forested, and far closer to the sea, Makovicky said.They will prey on contemporary sauropods – some of which are found on the same site.The individual lives for about 40 years – a mature age for dinosaurs – and the skull is full of peaks, grooves, lumps, and small bees.”It will definitely look very impressive and like a Gargoyle,” Makovicky said.”That is a type of feature that lives in live animals is often under sexual selection,” speculated species using their big skull as a “billboard” to advertise for prospective friends.
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