Sauropod 'Missing Link' Discovered In Argentina

[Judi Lynn]

Sauropod 'Missing Link' Discovered In Argentina
Posted on: Thursday, 24 March 2011, 11:10 CDT

Scientists of the Egidio Feruglio Museum revealed a new type of dinosaur that was discovered in the North Central Province of Chubut – the Leonerasaurus Taquetransis. Geologists at the museum, along with a student, made the discovery at a site with fossil remains from the Jurassic period (206-144 million years ago).

Paleontologists believe that these fossils belong to a "missing link" dinosaur species which eventually evolved into the long-necked, long-tailed plant-eaters similar to Diplodocus, Brachiosaurus and Brontomerus, the scientists report in the journal PLoS ONE. These dinosaurs are known as sauropods and were the largest known land creatures to ever walk the earth about 170 million years ago.

Leonerasaurus, measuring at three meters, lived about 10 million years before the sauropods. They may be the connection between smaller prosauropods that existed during the Triassic period (248-205 million years ago) and their larger descendants, the sauropods.

"The importance of this find is that it is a new species. It gives us information on the origin of the sauropods," Diego Pol of the Egidio Feruglio Museum of Paleontology told AFP. He is the co-author of the jarticle announcing the Leonerasaurus discovery.

More:
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/2017984/sauropod_missing_link_discovered_in_argentina/index.html

[xchrom]

1. Recommend

[Tripod]

2. k&r

[The Doctor.]

3. So, were they like, our watchdogs, or something?

Gotta admit, this is a very cool find. Just wondering what the morons are going to make of it.