Tag : Anatomy

Washington: An international team has discovered a new big, meat-eating dinosaur, dubbed Meraxes Gigas, that provides clues about the evolution and anatomy of predatory dinosaurs such as the Carcharodontosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex. Meraxes measured around 36 feet from snout to tail tip and weighed approximately 9,000 pounds. The study is published in Current Biology, a peer-reviewed scientific biology journal. The researchers initially discovered Meraxes in Patagonia in 2012 and have spent the last several years extracting, preparing, and analyzing the specimen. The dinosaur is part of the Carcharodontosauridae family, a group of giant carnivorous theropods that also includes Giganotosaurus, one of the largest known meat-eating dinosaurs and one of the reptilian stars of the recently released "Jurassic World: Dominion" movie. Though not the largest among carcharodontosaurids, Meraxes was still an imposing animal measuring around 36 feet from snout to tail tip and weighing approximately 9,000 pounds. The researchers recovered the Meraxes from rocks that are around 90-95 million years old, alongside other dinosaurs including several long-necked sauropod specimens. Meraxes is among the most complete carcharodontosaurid skeleton paleontologists have found yet in the southern hemisphere and includes nearly the entirety of the animal's skull, hips, and both left and right arms and legs. "The neat thing is that we found the body plan is surprisingly similar to tyrannosaurs like T. rex," said Peter Makovicky, one of the principal authors of the study and a professor in the University of Minnesota N.H. Winchell School of Earth and Environmental Sciences. "But, they're not particularly closely related to T. rex. They're from very different ...