They find four heads of a new species of giant dinosaur

A team of American paleontologists has discovereda new species of dinosaurwho have been baptizedAbydosaurus mcintoshi. They belong to the family of giant long-necked, long-tailed herbivorous dinosaurs known asbrachiosáuridos, agenus of sauropodswho lived in the late Jurassic period, about150 million years.

The discovery was made possible by the discovery offour skulls, two of them practically intact, in a quarry of the so-called “National Monument of Dinosaurs”, in Utah (USA). Until now, almost everything that was known about this type of dinosaur was based on fossil remains from the neck down. In fact, of the 120 known sauropod species, only eight complete skulls have been recovered. “Sauropod heads are lighter than mammalian skulls because they are at the end of very long necks,” says Brooks Britt, a paleontologist at Brigham Young University, who reports the finding in the journal.Naturalists. “They are formed byfine bones joined by soft tissues, which normally separate quickly once dead and disintegrate “, he clarifies to explain the exceptional nature of his discovery.

Among other things, researchers have been able to find out thatAbydosaurus they did not chew the food. They directly uprooted the plants and gobbled them up. “The skulls represented only 2% of their body volume and they did not have a sufficiently complex dental system to chew on,” Britt explains.

To name the new reptile, paleontologists have been inspired by Egyptian mythology.Abydosaurus make reference toAbydos, Greek name of the city bathed by the waters of the Nile that at present is known as El Araba el Madfuna. Here both the head and neck of Osiris, the Egyptian god of life and death, a symbol of fertility, were buried. On the other hand,mcintoshi pays tribute to American paleontologistJack McIntoshfor his contributions to the study of sauropods.