Mystery with 120 years resolved: new species of identified dinosaur

A 125 -year -old fossil from the unnoticed Wales country eventually revealed a new kind of dinosaur.

Through advanced digital digitization methods, the team has reexated a known jaw fossil since 1899 and exposed for decades at the National Museum of Wales, but which It had never been correctly classified.

Everything was possible thanks to the 3D digital reconstruction using photography, which allows the fossil to be studied in detail for the first time.

“We started by scanning the fossil surface through photogrammetry. After we obtain digitization, we reversed it-essentially creating a digital negative mold. It was then a simple question to fuse both sides and analyze anatomy from there. The digital reconstruction obtained gives us a much clearer idea of ​​what the original structure of the bone would be like,” says author Michael J. Benton.

“This specimen was often referred to in scientific articles, but had never been successfully identified – We weren’t even sure it was a dinosaur“, Explains the student of paleontology and author of the published in Proceedings of the Geologists’ AssociationOwain Evans.

“It was called Zanclodon cambrensis by Edwin Tully Newton in 1899, but we knew the name Zanclodon It had been abandoned for applying to a wide variety of primitive reptiles. Therefore, we decided to name him in honor of Newton, calling him Newtonsaurus. It is different from all the other dinosaurs of the time and needs a distinct name, ”he explains.

“We can now confirm that this specimen most likely belonged to a large predator theopod dinosaur, which wandered in the back of the southern Wales during the end of the Triásic. tearspode – A carnivorous predator dinosaur. In addition, it is close to the origin of the two main divisions of the Teropoda: the coelophysoidea and the averostra, ”comments Evans.

“The most surprising is the animal size. The preserved jaw measures 28 cm in length, and this is only the front half; Originally the jaw would be 60 cm, corresponding to a dinosaur with a body length between 5 and 7 meters. This is unusual for a Triásic theopod, as most had half of this size or less, ”he says.