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

High in the Argentine Andes, a team of paleontologists found a small dinosaur fossil with the first traces of an elongated neck that distinguishes sauropod dinosaurs like Diplodocus.

Appointed Huayracursor jaguensisThe fossil is a partial skeleton of a dinosaur that lived in the Triassic, about 230 million years ago. It was approximately 2 meters long and weighed approximately 18 kilograms.

Later sauropods such as Brontosaurus And Patagotitan would become one of the largest and longest animals to have ever lived, reaching a length of over 35 meters and a weight of over 70 tonnes.

Until recently, the precursors of these long-necked herbivorous dinosaurs, called sauropodomorphs, were thought to be small, short-necked, and possibly omnivorous.

Other sauropodomorphs living at the same time as H. jagueensis were much smaller, about a meter long, and showed no signs of the elongation of the neck bones seen in the newly discovered species. It wasn’t until several million years later that sauropodomorphs began to significantly increase their body mass and elongate their necks, paleontologists believed.

The discovery of H. jagueensis in Santo Domingo Cove in northwest Argentina, carried out by Martín Hechenleitner of Argentina’s National Council for Scientific and Technical Research and colleagues, changes the story of how these dinosaurs got their long necks.

“Huayracurseur It breaks somewhat from this idea of ​​gradual transition, because it coexisted with its smaller relatives, proportionally to the shorter neck,” explains Hechenleitner.

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

This demonstrates that increased body size and neck elongation were already evident early in the evolutionary history of its lineage, Hechenleitner explains.

“Huayracurseur “It’s fascinating to think that giant animals measuring up to 40 meters long and over 30 tonnes, like Argentinosaurus And Patagotitanare part of a lineage that began more than 100 million years earlier, with bipedal forms just over a meter long and weighing just 10 to 15 kilograms. [in weight].”

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