MEXICO CITY, January 5 A new species of herbivorous dinosaur with a long neck and beak, which lived 96-93 million years ago in South America, was discovered by scientists from the Argentine Council for Scientific Research Conicet – the most The largest in the rebbachisaurid family, the quadruped Sidersaura marae, weighed about 15 tons and reached 20 meters in length.
“”The new dinosaur Sidersaura marae was quadrupedal and had a long tail. Fossils of four different specimens were discovered in Cañadón de las Campanas, a town located 20 kilometers from Villa El Chocón. Rocks from the Huincul Formation in Neuquene corresponds to the beginning of the Upper Cretaceous and has an estimated age of 96 to 93 million years,” according to a statement on the Conicet website.
Representatives of the family Rebbachisauridae were not large in size, but the open species Sidersaura marae is the largest among them. The mass of the lizards was supposedly about 15 tons, and the length reached 20 meters.
The new species got its name because of the stellate shape of the discovered tail bones – Sider is translated from Latin as star. The first remains of Sidersaura marae were discovered in 2012, after which five annual campaigns took place at the site. During work in the province of Neuquen, along with fossils of a new species, the remains of the giant predator Meraxes gigas were also discovered.
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