Guemesia ochoai could have looked similar to relatives such as Carnotaurus sastrei (pictured). Credit: Fred Wierum, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Phys.org has a story about an armless therapod dinosaur. Many of the large predatory dinosaurs had reduced arms and hands with Tyrannosaurs and South American Giganotosaurus and Carnotaurus as prime examples. Now, a new species of abelisaur, Guemesia ochoai, has taken it a step farther. G. ochoai lived about 70 million years ago in what is modern day Argentina. All the details can be found in a paper by Frederico Agnolin et al in the Journal of Vertebate Paleontology.
A new dinosaur which formed part of an array of 'unusual' creatures has been discovered in Argentina.
The new species, Guemesia ochoai, could be the close relative of the ancestors of an armless group of dinosaurs, which roamed the southern hemisphere over 70 million years ago.
A partially complete skull uncovered in Argentina provides new evidence of a unique ecosystem during the Late Cretaceous.
Guemesia ochoai was a species of abelisaurid, a clade of carnivores which roamed what is now Africa, South America and India. Dating back around 70 million years, the dinosaur may have been a close relative of the entire group's ancestors.
The discovery of Guemesia ochoai's skull offers a valuable insight into an area which has very few abelisaurid fossils, and may go some way to explain why the area gave rise to such unusual animals.
Professor Anjali Goswami, Research Leader at the Museum and co-author, says, "This new dinosaur is quite unusual for its kind. It has several key characteristics that suggest that is a new species, providing important new information about an area of the world which we don't know a lot about.
"It shows that the dinosaurs that live in this region were quite different from those in other parts of Argentina, supporting the idea of distinct provinces in the Cretaceous of South America. It also shows us that there is lot more to be discovered in these areas that get less attention than some of the more famous fossil sites."
