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Researchers have identify a newfound sauropod species that was the largest of its kind and one of the last life fellow member of its syndicate .
Paleontologists first discovered fossil from the mintage , now namedSidersaura marae , in 2012 in the Huincul Formation in Argentina ’s Neuquén Province . It took research worker multiple digging over several years to regain the giant dinosaur part , which come from four individuals , according to a written report published Jan. 3 in the journalHistorical Biology .
The newly described sauropod Sidersaura marae lived during the Cretaceous period in what is now Argentina. We see the predator Meraxes gigas in the background.
The new discovered animals belike died in a muddy surface area near a river , and while magpie and water displaced some of their bones , many were preserved . investigator found one of the new sauropod dwell next to agiant meat - eating dinosaurcalled Meraxes gigas , unveiled in 2022 , while the other three were 65 feet ( 20 meters ) aside .
S. marae ’s fogy are around 93 million to 96 million years previous and particular date from the early stages of the lateCretaceousperiod ( 100.5 million to 66 million years ago ) , which represents the last swansong of the dinosaurs before adevastating asteroid strikewiped out the non - avian dinosaur .
The newfound sauropod dinosaur were up to 65 feet long and weighed 16.5 tons ( 15 metric ton ) . There are muchlarger dinosaurson record , butS. maraeis a rebbachisaurid sauropod — which ordinarily consider up to 10 scads ( 9 metric tons ) — raising question about how theseanimals develop to be so large .
Sidersaura maraewith a human outline for scale.
" This find open up the subject field to unexampled investigating and inquiry in guild to study how these brute could gain these vast sizes , " subject lead authorLucas Nicolás Lerzo , a doctoral pupil at Maimónides University in Argentina , say Live Science .
Rebbachisaurids were a family of sauropod dinosaur with duck - like cheek that fed on vegetation close to the ground , according to astatementreleased by the Argentine National Scientific and Technical Research Council ( CONICET ) .
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Lerzo began meditate the bones in 2017 and found that many features separated them from other rebbachisaurids . Some of those differences were connected to the new mintage ' massive size . For instance , the hind limbs ofS. maraewere much more robust than those of its relatives , credibly to support more weight .
The researchers namedS. maraeafter the unusual leading shape of its haemal arches — bony structures in the tail . Sidersauracombines " sider , " the Romance word for virtuoso , with the Greek word " saura , " mean " lizard " or " reptilian . "
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Lerzo and his team also looked at the evolutionary relationship between the new species and other rebbachisaurids . The written report source noted thatS. maraewas more closely related to old members of the grouping from the former Cretaceous , rather than to other former Cretaceous rebbachisaurids .
The find shed new light on the evolution of the rebbachisaurid family just as their time was come to an last . Rebbachisauridae go nonextant around 90 million years ago , soS. maraewas among the last to take the air Earth . " It ’s the last form of the group , " Lerzo say .
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