A new carnivorous dinosaur found in North America

 

A new species of carnivorous dinosaurs that lived during the Late Cretaceous has been identified in the United States, taking place on the podium three largest species ever discovered in North America, paleontologists announced Friday in the journal Nature Communications.

“Siats meekerorum , “a name that refers to eating monster men of Indian legend, is only the second dinosaur family carcharodontosaures, gigantic carnivorous dinosaurs discovered in North America.

The first North American Carcharodontosaurus, Acrocanthosaurus atokensis, was discovered in 1950.

Siats The fossil described by Lindsay Zanno (Museum of Natural Sciences North Carolina) and Peter Makovicky (Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago) belonged to a individual over 9 meters, weighing at least 4 tons. Despite this gigantism, the bones are those of a young animal.

Researchers estimate that an adult animal could reach the size of Acrocanthosaurus, the two species competing for the position of second largest carnivorous dinosaur in North America behind the ferocious Tyrannosaurus rex, which could be around 7 tons.

According to the researchers, the Upper Cretaceous (there are between 100 million and 66 million years ago), Siats sowed terror in your territory today corresponds to the State of Utah. It was not known yet who played first predator at that time in North America.

At the time Siats reigned, the landscape was green, populated by herbivorous dinosaurs, turtles, crocodiles and other predators like the first tyrannosaurs.

“carcharodontosaures The longer reigned in North America than we expected,” said Lindsay Zanno. In fact, Siats fills a gap of more than 30 million years in the fossil record, a period which saw the role of top predator carcharodontosaures pass to Early Cretaceous tyrannosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous.

Siats would thus prevented small tyrannosaurs establish themselves at the top of the food chain. It was only after their demise that tyrannosaurs have evolved into huge predators.

A new carnivorous dinosaur found in North America