Paleontologists In Mongolia Discovered A New Species Of Sand Dragon That Lived Up To 145 Million Years Ago
In 2018, paleontologists were hunting for fossils in Mongolia. The excavations resulted in the discovery of a new species of “sand dragon” that lived during the Cretaceous period, which spanned from 145 million to 66 million years ago.
During this time, the supercontinent Pangea started to break up. The Cretaceous period was also the last dinosaur age, marking the beginning of the downfall of species like the Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus rex.
The remains of such creatures are commonly unearthed from the Nemegt Basin of the Gobi Desert in Mongolia. The Gobi Desert is the world’s largest dinosaur fossil reservoir. It’s also where researchers stumbled across the new species.
“The Upper Cretaceous beds in the Gobi Desert have been a rich source of many troodontid species, especially the Nemegt and Djadochta formations in the Nemegt Basin, Mongolia, as well as the Wulansuhai Formation in Bayan Mandahu, China,” said the researchers.
From the barren landscape in the Baruungoyot Formation of the Nemegt Basin, they dug up pieces of hind limb bones that didn’t match any other known species. They figured out that the bones belonged to Troodontidae, a group of small bird-like dinosaurs from the Late Jurassic to the Late Cretaceous periods.
According to paleontologist Sungjin Lee and colleagues from Seoul National University, the defining characteristics of troodontids are “large orbits, long hind limbs with asymmetrical metatarsi, and an enlarged ungual on the second pedal digit as well as many bird-like features.”
But, when the paleontologists compared the bones to other species, they noted a few key differences.
For instance, a long bone in the foot called the tarsometatarsus was extremely slender in comparison to other dinosaurs that ran on their hind legs at a rapid pace.
The researchers thought the new species was most likely able to move quickly in order to avoid predators and hunt for mammals.
Dmitry Pichugin – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only
They determined that it was a new species named Harenadraco prima. Until now, no other troodontids had been uncovered in the Baruungoyot Formation, which is surprising because it is one of the most significant sedimentary formations in the Nemegt Basin.
Previously, the lack of troodontids in the area had led experts to believe that they did not live there during the upper Cretaceous.
However, the excavation of the first “sand dragon” indicates that the gap in the troodontid record was due to the fact that the bones hadn’t been found yet, not because they didn’t exist.
The fossils of Harenadraco were fragile, which might explain why other bones haven’t surfaced. Its discovery confirms the presence of troodontids in all three formations of the Nemegt Basin.
“The presence of Harenadraco prima in the Baruungoyot Formation also demonstrates that troodontids of the Nemegt Basin were diverse enough to adapt to various environments,” stated the researchers.
The details of the findings were published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
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