Detecting traces of a giant ‘death dragon’ with a wingspan of 9 meters
05/25/2022 19:36 GMT+7
This is the rare discovery of the so-called ‘beast’, the largest fearsome sky predator ever found in South America.
Argentine scientists unearthed a rare, never-before-seen-before fossil of a pterosaur, a giant flying reptile dubbed the ‘dragon of death’ in the Andes mountains in the western province of Mendoza. .
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| Detecting traces of a giant ‘death dragon’ with a wingspan of 9 meters |
Bone fragments preserved in the rock of the Andes for about 86 million years, this flying creature lived with dinosaurs. At about the length of a yellow bus, with an estimated wingspan of 9 meters, it is the largest pterosaur discovered in South America, one of the largest flying vertebrates that ever lived.
Leonardo Ortiz, Cuyo National University in Mendoza, the lead scientist on the study, said the unprecedented features in the find this time call for a new name. Therefore. Scientists have named the species Thanatosdrakon amaru, a combination of the ancient Greek words thanatos meaning death and drakon meaning dragon.
Meanwhile, in the Quechuan vernacular, amaru means flying snake from the Indigenous Quechuan language and refers to a two-headed Incan deity.
Leonardo Ortiz said: “This is a female individual. This species has a height equivalent to the height of a giraffe, large head, strong body. We have no records of any closely related individuals, even with similar body alterations to these monsters. This discovery expands knowledge of the anatomy of this diverse group of carnivores.”
The ‘beast’ was a fearsome predator in the sky in its day. It is estimated that this terrifying creature lived at least 20 million years before an asteroid impacted what is now the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. The incident caused the disappearance of about three-quarters of life on the planet.
The Mendoza area, Argentina is home to the highest mountain in the Americas called Aconcagua. This is also where paleontologists have made important dinosaur discoveries including the giant Sauropod dinosaur or Notocolossus – one of the largest dinosaurs in the world.
The fossil is being preserved at the dinosaur laboratory and museum, Cuyo National University in Mendoza. To help preserve the specimen, museum experts have molded various fossils in a one-to-one ratio for display at the museum.
Hoang Dung (synopsis)
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