It is a new theropod dinosaur that lived more than 145 million years ago during the Upper Jurassic period . The particular thing about this discovery is that it is a rare specimen: it is a mix of a puma with the hands of a tyrannosaurus that was also not a carnivore but a herbivore. The study, carried out by a team of paleontologists from the “B Rivadavia” Museum of Natural Sciences in Buenos Aires (Argentina) has been published in the journal Nature .
The discovery of the disconcerting Chilesaurus diegosuarezi has occurred in southern Chile, specifically in the town of Aysén. Its fossils have revealed that it is a primitive species of theropod (like the velociraptor or the tyrannosaurus) but herbivore. The name of this new member of the dinosaur family is due both to its geographical origin and to the 7-year-old boy who found the first bone, Diego Suárez .
It is the first dinosaur of the Jurassic period known to date in Chile and also represents an evolutionary enigma for science . “It had a small skull, a horny beak, and spatula-shaped teeth. His arms were robust, but his hands only had two fairly short fingers that ended in slightly curved claws, so he did not use his hands to capture animals . More than a dozen very complete and articulated specimens show that it combined all this series of traits, so there is no doubt about it ”, clarifies Fernando Novas, leader of the study.
The fact that this dinosaur has such a hodgepodge and that it was a herbivore on top of it is a real evolutionary puzzle. What were the ancestors of the Chilesaurus? Did you have any close relatives that we know? And descendants? All of these questions currently represent an enigma that researchers hope to solve.
