What is known

Paleontologists found the fossils in May near a reservoir in the municipality of São Juan do Polezine. The team of scientists claims that the dinosaur is 2,000 years old about 233 million yearsIt belonged to a family of Triassic carnivores called Herrerasauridae, but the specific species has not yet been formally described.

Scientists are still debating the evidence for the oldest known dinosaurs. The oldest indisputable dinosaur fossils are about 231 million years and Herrerasauridae, but there are also older fossils of a controversial dinosaur called Nyasasaurus that lived nearby. 240 million years before.

The skeleton of the newly discovered dinosaur is almost completely preserved, which will help researchers if the specimen is indeed a herrerasaurid. understanding the origin of dinosaursRodrigo Tempe Muller, a paleontologist at the Federal University of Santa Maria in Brazil who led the excavation, said:

See the photo of the find and the place where it was discovered: video

According to Müller, the fossils will help scientists better understand the first wave of carnivorous dinosaurs at the top of the food chain, who they evolved from, where they lived and more.

This individual may have been around 2.5 metres tall, but its species could have grown much larger.

This was a bipedal carnivore, so it walked on its hind legs and probably had its hands free to hold its prey. We cannot say that it reached its maximum size. Although its length was 2.5 meters, some individuals of this group could reach up to five to six meters.
– says Mueller.

Muller and his colleagues discovered the fossils after rains accelerated natural erosion in Rio Grande do Sul state, where the region experienced record rainfall at the beginning of the year, causing flooding.

The site where the scientists work is part of the Quarta Colônia geopark and has long been known for its dinosaur fossils. The rains mean that researchers are scrambling to find fossils before they are lost or destroyed. “When it rains heavily, sometimes small materials are lost before we can get to them, so we are now in a hurry to save all the material that has been found,” Müller concludes.