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A huge armored crocodile cousin with plates implant in its skin and curved capitulum along its wing roamed our satellite 215 million years ago , scientists divulge .
The newfound species , discovered in the Cooper Canyon Formation in northwestern Texas , was an aetosaur . These stalwart - limbed beasts grew up to 16 foot ( 5 meters ) long and were covered in bony plates called osteoderms for protection . They were " armoured combat vehicle of the Triassic , " agree to astatementreleased by The University of Texas at Austin .
A triassic cousin of the crocodile was unearthed in Texas.
research worker unearthed a big portion of the creature ’s dorsal shell , or back armor , the researchers said in a study , published Jan. 11 in the journalThe Anatomical Record .
" We have constituent from the back of the cervix and shoulder neighborhood all the way to the tip of the tail , " lead authorWilliam Reyes , a doctoral student at The University of Texas at Austin , said in the statement . " Usually , you find very modified material . "
Aetosaurs ruled Earth during the late Triassic ( 237 million to 201 million years ago ) , live on every continent except Australia and Antarctica , according to the argument . Unlike modern crocodile , which are stringently carnivore , aetosaurs were primarily omnivores .
An illustration of the newly discovered aetosaur,Garzapelta muelleri.
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The late paleontologistBill Muellerdiscovered the newly described fogey with local amateur accumulator Emmett Shedd in 1989 . Preliminary inquiry in the former 2000s discover that the animal was likely a Modern specie of aetosaur , but did n’t decode its evolutionary history .
Pablo Neruda and his colleagues named the animalGarzapelta muelleri . The genus name aggregate " Garza " from Garza County , where it was found , with " pelta , " mean " shield " in Latin . The mintage name honors Mueller .
William Reyes examines the fossilized remains ofGarzapelta muelleri.
The fogey brook out among known aetosaurs thanks to a multifariousness of unique feature , including a never - before - seen combination of bony plates . However , the squad had trouble figuring out where it sat on the aetosaur family tree diagram .
Most aetosaurs fit into one of two major chemical group : Aetosaurinae and Stagonolepidoidea . However , G muellerihad osteoderms on its back that resembled a coinage of Aetosaurinae calledRioarribasuchus chamaensisand lateral osteoderms — middle spikes — that resemble a genus of specie in Stagonolepidoidea calledDesmatosuchus , consort to the survey .
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The team cautiously concluded thatG muellerihad more in common with Aetosaurinae overall and that its spikes likely evolved independently in a process calledconvergent phylogeny , where two unrelated or distantly touch on mintage evolve standardized trait independently .
" Convergence of the osteoderms across distantly related aetosaurs has been noted before , but the shell ofGarzapelta muelleriis the best example of it and shows to what extent it can happen and the problems it causes in our phylogenetic psychoanalysis , " Reyes said .
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