Huayracursor jaguensis dinosaur fossil rewrites the story of how sauropods got long necks

High in the Argentine Andes, a team of paleontologists has found a small dinosaur fossil with the first hints of the elongated neck that distinguishes such sauropod dinosaurs as Diplodocus.

Named Huyracursor jaguensisThe fossil is a partial skeleton of a dinosaur that lived during the Triassic period, about 230 million years ago. Its length was about 2 meters and its weight was about 18 kilograms.

Later, sauropods appeared, such as Brontosaurus And Patagotitan will become one of the largest and longest-necked animals to ever live, reaching a length of more than 35 meters and a weight of more than 70 tons.

Until recently, it was thought that the ancestors of these long-necked plant-eating dinosaurs, known as sauropodomorphs, were small, short-necked, and possibly omnivorous.

Other sauropodomorphs living at the same time as H. jaguensis were much smaller, about a meter long, and did not show the elongation of neck bones seen in the recently discovered species. Only a few million years later did sauropodomorphs begin to significantly increase their body mass and lengthen their necks, paleontologists believed.

Opening H. jaguensis at Santo Domingo Creek in northwestern Argentina, taken Martin Hechenleitner at Argentina's National Council for Scientific and Technical Research and colleagues is changing the story of how these dinosaurs got their long necks.

“Waircursor somewhat contradicts this idea of ​​a gradual transition, as it coexisted with its small relatives with proportionately shorter necks,” says Hechenleitner.

The dinosaur had a small skull compared to its contemporaries, strong hind limbs, thin thighs and short arms with fairly large, strong hands.

“This demonstrates that increased body size and neck elongation were evident early in the evolutionary history of his lineage,” says Hechenleitner.

“Waircursor The longer neck and larger body size date back to the first appearance of dinosaurs in the fossil record,” he says. “It’s amazing to think that giant animals up to 40 meters long and weighing over 30 tons, such as Argentinosaurus And Patagotitanare part of a lineage that began over 100 million years ago, with bipedal forms just over a meter long and weighing only 10 to 15 kilograms. [in weight]”

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