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Although paleontologists have debated the origin and distribution of dinosaurs for decades, the widely accepted theory is that they first appeared in the southern part of the ancient continent of Pangea 200 million years ago and spread northward only millions of years later. A new study changes the conversation dramatically.
Paleontologists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) have announced the discovery of a new dinosaur that defies conventional theory about the origin and distribution of dinosaurs. The location and age of the newly described fossils suggest that dinosaurs roamed the northern regions of Pangea millions of years earlier than previously thought. The results were announced in detail on January 8 to learn published in Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.
“We’re filling in part of that story and showing that the ideas we’ve held for so long — ideas supported by the fragmented evidence we’ve gotten — weren’t quite right,” said Dave Lovelace of the University of Wisconsin Museum of Geology at UW-Madison, who led the study. statement. “Now we have this evidence that dinosaurs were here in the northern hemisphere much earlier than we thought.”
In 2013, paleontologists discovered fossils in modern-day Wyoming that contradicted the theory. Due to the shifting of the Earth’s tectonic plates, this region was located near the equator in Laurasia, the northern half of Pangea (the southern half was called Gondwana) 200 million years ago. ). As the fossils disintegrated, paleontologists were able to assign the remains to a new species of dinosaur they named. Ahvaytum bahndooivecheit was probably early sauropod relative Ahvaitumbut it looked very different from the iconic long-necked herbivores.
“It was basically the size of a chicken, but it had a really long tail,” Lovelace said. “We think of dinosaurs as these giant behemoths, but they didn’t start out that way.” A mature specimen was one foot tall (30.5 centimeters) and about three feet long (91.4 cm).
But perhaps most shocking is the fossil’s age. Lovelace and his colleagues used radioisotope dating (a method of determining the age of materials by measuring radioactive decay) of the rock layers they discovered. Ahvaitum the fossils—and thus the fossils themselves—were about 230 million years old. It does Ahvaitum According to the study, it is the oldest known Laurasian dinosaur and is about the same age as the oldest Gondwanan dinosaurs. Dinosaurs first appeared in the Triassic period, about 230 million years ago. This period, which lasted from about 252 to 201 million years ago, saw the rise of the earliest dinosaurs before becoming dominant during the Jurassic period.
“With these fossils, we have the oldest equatorial dinosaur in the world — it’s also the oldest dinosaur in North America,” Lovelace added. The fact that the oldest known Laurasian dinosaur is as old as the oldest Gondwanan dinosaurs casts doubt on the theory that dinosaurs originated in the south of the ancient continent and only spread north after millions of years.
The site is within the ancestral lands of the Eastern Shoshone tribe. As a result, the researchers collaborated with tribal members throughout their work and included Eastern Shoshone elders and high school students in choosing the new dinosaur’s name. Ahvaitum bahndooiveche roughly translates to “long ago dinosaur” in Eastern Shoshone.
The district also provided additional findings. The team identified an early dinosaur footprint in the old rock layers, which means dinosaurs or dinosaur-related creatures called Laurasia home earlier. Ahvaitum. Paleontologists also a a newly described amphibianwhich is also named in the Eastern Shoshone language.
About the size of a chicken, challenging long-held theories about how dinosaurs spread across Pangea Ahvaitum as a result, it creates a clearer picture of the creatures that roamed the Earth millions of years before us.
