Mon 11 July 2022:
A new species of gigantic carnivorous dinosaur with a huge head and short arms has been found by scientists in Argentina.
The Tyrannosaurus rex-like dinosaur has been given the name Meraxes gigas after a fictitious dragon from the Game of Thrones book series.
Paleontologists excavated the dinosaur’s remains in Argentina’s northern Patagonia region over the course of four years, beginning with the skull.
The senior author of the study, Peter Makovicky from the University of Minnesota, told the news agency AFP that “We won the lottery and found it literally on the first morning.”
先日発表のあった新種恐竜「メラクセス・ギガス」です!#Meraxesgigas pic.twitter.com/i3iuM2Xywm
— 服部雅人 Masato Hattori (@dgdt2425) July 9, 2022
While the entire dinosaur weighed four metric tonnes and was 36 feet long, its skull is just over four feet long (127 centimeters).
Makovicky said its arms were two feet long, “so it’s literally half the length of the skull and the animal would not have been able to reach its mouth.”
Although Meraxes gigas resembles T-rex it, the latter did not tiny arms from the former as the two species were far apart on the evolutionary tree.
Taking on the function that forelimbs would have had in smaller species, Makovicky believes that as their heads grew larger, it became the dominant tool of their predatory arsenal.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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