The dragon was on top of a hill of bones. The skeleton of an animal that was nearly complete was found in the center of Argentina's Patagonian desert, and it was preserved just as it would have been when the animal died. The bones of the legs and hips are not the only ones. The paper-thin bones of the palate are not broken.
One of the fire-breathing dragons in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire inspired the name of the predator. The dinosaurs ruled the food chain in a warm, humid environment full of lush vegetation. If you mistake it for the larger T. rex, you'll get an oversized head with steak-knife teeth. It was from the far side of the dinosaur family tree that this ancient terror came.
The well-preserved skeleton of the giant meat-eating dinosaur, Meraxes, is giving new insight into its particular history and evolution. Steve Brusatte is a leading voice in the field who was not involved in the discovery. The international team of paleontologists had to work upside down and on a dune buggy in order to wake the dragon.
The odyssey started on the plains of Neuquén Province. According to Juan Canale, lead author of the Meraxes paper and a paleontologist at the National University of Ro Negro, the desert landscape is dominated by low, spiny bushes. Argentinosaurus, which may be the largest dinosaur ever found, was discovered in the arid region.
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Phil Bell says Neuquén is a great place to look for dinosaurs. The geology is laid bare for all to see in the region, which is a vast landscape and barren.
In 2012 the promise of finding another new dinosaur species from Neuquén brought Canale and his colleagues to Las Campanas Canyon, which he describes as a beautiful landscape. The canyon cuts down into Neuquén's desert scrublands, exposing layers of rock that date to the end of the dinosaur era. The team prepared to go prospecting near the mouth of the canyon.
The author says that you always find the best stuff on the last day. On the last day of sweating in the sun, dehydrated, and frustrated, you have to go back. This was not the other way around. On the first day, Juan found the first piece.
Shortly after team members fanned out to explore the canyon, Canale and colleague Pablo Gallina spotted a bone from a sauropod that was the primary prey for larger meat eating dinosaurs. Canale noticed that there was a big chunk of the centrum. He knew it was from a group of dinosaurs called the carcharodontosaurid.
Most of the fossils we have of carcharodontosaurs are not complete. The tyrannosaurs in North America and Asia occupied the top of the food chain after they died out. Over time, the three lineages got bigger, with big heads and small arms, even though they all evolved separately.
The early carcharodontosaurs like Acrocanthosaurus, which are very similar in size to Meraxes, have longer fore limbs. The forelimbs are getting smaller as skull sizes increase.
T. rex is the most well-known example of this course. The arms of T. rex have caused a lot of speculation and theories as to why they were so small.
Brusatte says that small arms were normal for large animals. It is not clear why, but I think it is because the heads of these monsters became so big and strong that they took care of almost everything when it came to eating. A Swiss Army knife was the big head.
Scott Persons, who was not on the Meraxes team but has studied predatory dinosaurs extensively, says that the fossil is a wonderfully fascinating and badass animal. Arms are important to us because they are. The dinosaurs were adapting.
The skull of Meraxes was five feet long, and its mouth was full of teeth that were a signature of carcharodontosaurs. If you have a mouth like that, it's better to seize things with your jaws than with your hands.
According to Brusatte, the best forelimb of a huge carcharodontosaurid was found in Meraxes. There are gaps in the fossil record due to the quality of the skeleton.
Persons says that before Meraxes, paleontologists were only guessing at the arm proportions of the fossils. The Acrocanthosaurus, which had large forelimbs, was one of the earliest animals to have those limbs. He says that the exceptional state of Meraxes proves that the lineage was following the same pattern as tyrannosaurs and other large meat-eaters.
“There was bone all around that hill. It was a dinosaur graveyard.”
Considering what the team had to do to get the fossils from canyon to lab, the quality of the Meraxes skeleton is impressive. Canale and colleagues took a closer look at the site after they recognized the importance of the partial vertebra. There was a lot of bones around that hill. It was a Dinosaur Graveyard.
The bones of at least three other dinosaurs, all sauropods, were found close to Meraxes, but there is no evidence that they were killed in a single catastrophic event.
Every paleontologist dreams of finding multiple, well-preserved fossil skeletons. The fossils were in between the two layers of mudstone on the hill.
A lot of jackhammer and rock saw work was required to get through the sandstone. The sandstone overhangs were left by the erosion of the mudstone layer. Parts of the skull were lodged there. Field prep methods involve working down to a fossil, digging around it and applying a protective jacket of wet plaster, which is done by gravity. Everything was turned on its head at the resting place of Meraxes. It is not possible to plaster something upside down.
Akiko Shinya, chief fossil preparator at Chicago's Field Museum, came up with a solution that allowed the plaster to adhere to the upside down fossils. The scientists had to get the bones off the hill after one obstacle was overcome. They used to haul jackhammers and generators up the steep hill, but now it's a dangerous descent. The hip bones of a single jacketed femur weighed almost double that.
The team couldn't move the leg bones because they were too large. Canale enlisted the help of a local who had a dune buggy and was able to get pieces of the pelvis back to camp. It took the team four seasons to dig up the bones. The process of understanding the significance of this ancient dragon is about to begin. Some team members are looking at its feet. The T. rex feet are very slender.
Persons notes that the inside toe has a big, curved, and sharp claw similar to another dinosaur. He1-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-6556 The adaptation reminds him of the modern cassowary, which is considered the most dangerous bird in the world because of its scythe-like talon. Meraxes had evolved to be both a bite and a kick.
Paleontology has traditionally been dominated by a handful of wealthy, Northern Hemisphere countries, but the discovery of several sauropod skeletons at the hill of bones is important more broadly. The expedition that discovered Meraxes is the latest in a decades-long international collaboration led by Argentine scientists.
Bell thinks that the Argentinian dragon will help to address the geographic bias in the field. Paleontology in the Southern Hemisphere is overshadowed by what's happening in North America. Only half of the evidence is considered when looking at dinosaurs from the north. We got a lot wrong in the past because of that.
South America is a leader in the future of paleontology. There will be a more dramatic impact on the field when big discoveries are made there. We probably don't know much about dinosaurs.
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