Emily Chan
In southern Brazil, a torrent of heavy rains exposed the remains of one of the oldest dinosaurs ever discovered.
A team of paleontologists found the fossils next to a reservoir located in the municipality of São João do Polêsine.
The dinosaur was around 233 million years old and belonged to Herrerasauridae, a family of carnivorous dinosaurs from the Triassic period, which lasted from 252 million to 201 million years ago. At that time, all the continents were merged into a supercontinent known as Pangea.
The skeleton is almost completely preserved. It is possibly the second most complete Herrerasaurida skeleton ever found. Its discovery was quite a surprise to the paleontologists.
The team was led by Rodrigo Temp Müller from the Federal University of Santa Maria. It took four days for them to excavate the site.
They extracted a block of rock containing the skeleton with great care. It was then transported to a laboratory for further analysis.
Based on the fossils, the dinosaur likely measured about 8.2 feet in length, but the species may have grown even larger.
“It’s a carnivorous, bipedal animal, so it walked on its hind legs and probably had its hands free to handle prey,” said Müller.
“We can’t say it had reached its maximum size. Although he was [8.2 feet] long, some individuals in this group could reach five or six meters [16.5 to 19.5 feet].”
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