{"id":124835,"date":"2025-10-16T01:35:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T01:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/124835\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T01:35:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T01:35:09","slug":"new-species-of-triassic-carnivorous-dinosaur-identified-in-argentina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/124835\/","title":{"rendered":"New Species of Triassic Carnivorous Dinosaur Identified in Argentina"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new genus and species of theropod dinosaur being named Anteavis crurilongus has been described by a team of paleontologists from the Universidad Nacional de San Juan, the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales \u2018Bernardino Rivadavia,\u2019 the University of Birmingham, CONICET and CIGEOBIO.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"An<\/a><\/p>\n

An artist\u2019s reconstruction of Anteavis crurilongus. Image credit: Jorge Blanco.<\/p>\n

Anteavis crurilongus roamed Earth during the Carnian age of the Late Triassic epoch, 231 to 226 million years ago.<\/p>\n

This dinosaur was approximately 1.2 m (4 feet) in length and weighed about 8-9 kg.<\/p>\n

The ancient species was an early-diverging theropod placed outside the dinosaur group Neotheropoda<\/a>, but it had unexpectedly derived features previously thought to be exclusive to that group.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is one of the oldest and most primitive dinosaurs known so far,\u201d said Dr. Ricardo Mart\u00ednez from the Universidad Nacional de San Juan and his colleagues.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe early diversification of dinosaurs produced a major ecological change in the terrestrial ecosystems, culminating with tetrapod assemblages dominated in abundance by dinosaurs by the Triassic\/Jurassic boundary, 201\u2009million years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTherefore, studying the initial diversification of dinosaurs is crucial to understand the establishment of Mesozoic assemblages.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, the lack of stratigraphically continuous fossil data in the few geological units that preserve the oldest known dinosaurs (233-227 million years ago) obscures our understanding of this initial diversification.\u201d<\/p>\n

The paleontologists unearthed the fossilized remains of Anteavis crurilongus \u2014 a partial skeleton and skull \u2014 in the Ischigualasto Formation in northwest Argentina in 2014.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are very few places in the world that preserve such ancient and well-preserved fossils,\u201d Dr. Martinez said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of them is the Santa Maria Formation in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul; the other is the Ischigualasto Formation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anteavis crurilongus lived in a warm and arid savanna about two million years after the Carnian pluvial episode<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe show that dinosaur diversity and abundance in the Ischigualasto Formation were higher than previously recognized, particularly among small herbivores (\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThis diversification occurred in Ischigualasto during a climatic shift to semi-arid conditions, but the return of more humid conditions resulted in a gap in the dinosaur record that started at around 229 million years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly 15\u2009million years later, in the middle Norian age, the dinosaur record recovered its abundance and diversity in the basin, but now it was characterized by larger-bodied species.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur findings demonstrate an early dinosaur diversification probably punctuated by a climate-driven faunal turnover in, at least, southwestern Pangea.\u201d<\/p>\n

A paper<\/a> about the discovery was published this week in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

R.N. Mart\u00ednez et al. A Carnian theropod with unexpectedly derived features during the first dinosaur radiation. Nat Ecol Evol, published online October 14, 2025; doi: 10.1038\/s41559-025-02868-4<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new genus and species of theropod dinosaur being named Anteavis crurilongus has been described by a team…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124836,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[75697,75698,394,75699,3898,442,23429,18,8101,4696,19,17,75700,75701,68987,133,13647,64355,75702],"class_list":{"0":"post-124835","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-anteavis","9":"tag-anteavis-crurilongus","10":"tag-argentina","11":"tag-carnian-pluvial-episode","12":"tag-climate","13":"tag-climate-change","14":"tag-dinosaur","15":"tag-eire","16":"tag-evolution","17":"tag-fossil","18":"tag-ie","19":"tag-ireland","20":"tag-ischigualasto-formation","21":"tag-neotheropoda","22":"tag-paleoclimate","23":"tag-science","24":"tag-south-america","25":"tag-theropod","26":"tag-triassic"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}