In the Sahara desert, excavations carried out by a team of archaeologists have revealed the bones of a new dinosaur, a rare, large creature belonging to the group of titanosaurs. It is called Mansourasaurus shahinae and lived in the Late Cretaceous period, between 100 and 66 million years ago.
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves him
In the Sahara desert, excavations carried out by a team of archaeologists have revealed the bones of a new dinosaur, a rare, large creature belonging to the group of titanosaurs. It is called Mansourasaurus shahinae and lived in the Late Cretaceous period, between 100 and 66 million years ago.
When it comes to the extinction of the dinosaurs, Africa is a kind of blank page. Fossils found in Africa from the late Cretaceous are few and date back to very distant times. This means that the course of dinosaur evolution on the continent has largely remained a mystery. But in the Sahara Desert in Egypt, scientists have discovered one new dinosaur species which could veil some mysteries and fill just as many gaps.
Its peculiarity therefore lies in the fact that it provides new information on life and on the end of the era of the dinosaurs in Africa which occurred about 66 million years ago. The Mansourasaurus it will help scientists find out which creatures populated the African continent at the time.
Its fossilized remains were unearthed thanks to an expedition undertaken by Mansoura University, led by Dr. Hesham Sallam of the Department of Geology.
Its skeleton is important because it belongs to the most complete dinosaur specimen so far discovered from the late Cretaceous in Africa, and includes parts of the skull, lower jaw, neck and posterior vertebrae, ribs, much of the shoulder and leg. front, back foot part.
The dinosaur fed on plants, was about the length of an African elephant, about 10 meters long and belonged to one of the largest dinosaur groups ever lived on Earth, not surprisingly called titanosaurs, a group of sauropods common throughout much of the world during the Cretaceous period.
“The discovery and extraction of Mansourasaurus was an extraordinary experience for the team. It was thrilling for my students to discover bone after bone, as every new element we recovered helped reveal who this giant dinosaur was. " explains Sallam.
The paleontologist and co-author of the study, Dr. Matt Lamanna of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History added:
“When I first saw the fossil images, I was amazed. This was the Holy Grail, a well-preserved creature from the end of the Age of Dinosaurs in Africa. We paleontologists have been looking for it for a long, long time ”.
Late Cretaceous dinosaur fossils are hard to find. Much of the land where they might be hiding is covered in lush vegetation but also rock like in the Rocky Mountain, Gobi Desert or Patagonia region.
The lack of Late Cretaceous fossils in Africa so far has been particularly frustrating for paleontologists as, at the time, the continents were undergoing enormous geological and geographical changes. During much of the Triassic and Jurassic periods, all continents were united in the supercontinent Pangea but in the Cretaceous they began to divide and moved to give life to the current configuration.
Historically, it is not clear how well connected Africa was to the other southern hemispheres and to Europe at that time. Mansourasaurus, being one of the few known African dinosaurs of the period, will help answer this question. By analyzing the characteristics of its bones, Sallam and his team found that it is more closely related to the dinosaurs of Europe and Asia than those found further south, in Africa or South America.
“The latest African dinosaurs were not completely isolated, contrary to what some have proposed in the past. There were still connections with Europe. "
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The research was published on Nature.
Francesca Mancuso
