New dino species prompts rethink on Sauropods

An odd-looking dinosaur whose fossilised remains were found by a Patagonian shepherd looking for lost sheep has prompted a rethink about the...

An odd-looking dinosaur whose fossilised remains were found by a Patagonian shepherd looking for lost sheep has prompted a rethink about the lumbering four-legged herbivores called Sauropods.

Beloved of toy-makers and cartoonists, Sauropods typically had long flexible necks, studded with as many as 19 vertebrae, that enabled them to munch on lofty vegetation – a classic result of evolutionary pressure.

But the new find suggests Sauropods also cleverly evolved in a different way, to exploit vegetation closer to the ground. The creature is a member of a Sauropod sub-group called Dicraeosaurids, which thrived during the late Jurassic period, about 135-150 million years ago. The bones, discovered on the summit of a remote hill some 25 km from the Argentine village of Cerro Condor, point to a dinosaur that probably grew to a maximum length of less than 10 metre.

The study, which appears on Thursday in the British weekly science journal Nature, is led by Oliver Rauhut of the Bavarian State Collection for Palaeontology and Geology in Munich.

Omar says he is considering becoming a party to JK statehood case in SC

India3 hr ago

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