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New Dinosaur Discovered In Patagonia
In Patagonia, today known as Argentina and Chile, a new impressive dinosaur fossil has been discovered giving us an idea about a dinosaur of our imagination: a big Sauropod with a mohawk of spikes on its back.
Bajadasaurus is now the latest Sauropod to join the Dinosauria clade, after discovering the unidentified teeth fossils four years ago in the very rich soil of Bajada, Argentina, Paleontologist Pablo Gallina worked with the Argentinian Science Agency to uncover the remaining body parts going from its teeth to its jawbones to its skull to finally uncovering its vertebra that had 60 cm long spines projecting out of it.
The spines that are the most unique feature of this new specie, were the size of an Antelope horn surrounded by keratin, but in this case it’s way more exciting since we’re not talking about a pair of horns but a single spiky spine on every vertebra forming a mohawk of spines on such a gigantic beast.
It is unknown what such a unique characteristic may have been used for, but this debate goes beyond Bajadasaurus, this goes for all ancient animals who used to have such a structure on their backs. One of the many hypotheses is that such a structure formed a sail on the back that helped these animals regulate their body temperature, other hypotheses claim this characteristic is purely defensive.
structure formed a sail on the back that helped these animals regulate their body temperature, other hypotheses claim this characteristic is purely defensive.
The new dinosaur has been named Bajadasaurus pronuspinax which means “lizard from Bajada with forward-bending spines.”
MEGA DINOSAURS
© Jorge A. González