Paleontologists in Argentina have found a skull of a dinosaur that lived 70 million years ago.
The new species is named after a hero of the Argentine War of Independence.
The researchers said that it was possible that G. ochoai was a close relative of the ancestors. It lacks horns, and it probably lived in northern Argentina, where its skull was.
Anjali Goswami, a research leader at the Natural History Museum in London, said in a statement that the dinosaurs that lived in this region were quite different.
There is a gallery about tiny-armed dinosaurs.
Given that their arms were useless, the long-necked titanosaurs are likely to have been preyed on by the Abelisaurids. They were not the only theropod with short arms. Although it has short arms, the dinosaur king could use his wee arms to bring prey in close.
With their skulls and fearsome jaws, abelisaurids had to take down their prey.
The skull is all that is left of this individual. Researchers got to study it after they found it in the Los Blanquitos Formation. The area where the brain sat was analyzed by the team. The braincase of G. ochoai was small, indicating that it had a small brain. This matter is not yet settled, but it is believed that this individual was a juvenile and that its entire cranium is 70% smaller.
There are rows of small holes at the front of the skull that were noticed by the research team. When the animal pumped blood into the thin skin at the front of its head, it could release heat.
Most of the abelisaurid species described from Argentina are from the south of the country. The discovery of a huge turtle with a 1 meter shell in this northern region suggests that it was a unique part of the world during the late Cretaceous period.
Researchers want to learn more about life in ancient Argentina by finding more G. ochoai and its relatives. The study was published online.
It was originally published on Live Science.
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