Posted Jan 14, 2023, 9:00 AM
New major discoveries in the world of Cretaceans. Researchers have discovered fossils of four types of dinosaurs, including a Megaraptor, in a remote area of Patagonia in southern Chile. Collected in 2021 on Cerro Guido, in the Las Chinas Valley, the bone remains were then transported to the laboratory. After checking, the scientists estimated that they belonged to dinosaurs that they had not previously identified in this place.
The Chilean Institute of Antarctica (Inach), in collaboration with the University of Chile and the University of Texas in the United States, has succeeded in identifying teeth and post-cranial bone parts of a Megaraptor, belonging to the Theropod family.
According to Marcelo Leppe, director of Inach, it is “very interesting in scientific terms to discover something that had not been found before in the Las Chinas Valley”. This area, located near the border with Argentina about 2,800 km south of Santiago, has become in recent years an important deposit of fossils.
Dinosaurs at the top of the food chain
“One of the characteristics that allowed us to identify with great certainty that they belong to the Megaraptoridae are the teeth, which are very curved backwards,” explains Jared Amudeo, a researcher at the University of Chile. These carnivorous dinosaurs had raptor claws, small ripping teeth and large upper limbs.
According to research, these dinosaurs were at the top of the food chain in this area they inhabited between 66 and 75 million years ago, during the late Cretaceous. Two specimens of Unenlagia, closely related to Velociraptors, have also been identified. The researchers suspect “a new species” or “a different clade (group)”.
The researchers also found remains of two bird lineages: an Enantiornithe, the most diverse and abundant group of Mesozoic birds, and an Ornithurinae, a group directly related to modern birds.
