Aug 8, 2023
TNNThe Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Roorkee scientists and Geological Survey of India (GSI) have discovered the oldest fossil remains of a long-necked, plant-eating dicraeosaurid dinosaur.
Image Source: nature-com/scientificreports
The discovery was made in Rajasthan's Jaisalmer. The fossil remains were collected from the region in 2018 after systematic exploration and excavation program. A group of scientists carried out research on it for around five years.
Image Source: nature-com/scientificreports
According to scientists, the discovery also suggests India was a major centre of dinosaur evolution. The fossils were collected by the GSI officers Krishna Kumar, Pragya Pandey and Triparna Ghosh under the supervision of Debasis Bhattacharya.
Image Source: nature-com/scientificreports
The remains are not only 167 million years old but they belong to a new species unknown to scientists thus far.
Image Source: nature-com/scientificreports
The new dinosaur has been named ‘Tharosaurus indicus’, the first name referring to the ‘Thar desert’ where the fossils were found, and the second name is after its country of origin, i.e., India.
Image Source: nature-com/scientificreports
The information was reveled in the study published in 'Scientific Reports', an international journal by the publishers of Nature.
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According to scientists, fossils of dicraeosaurid dinosaurs have been found previously in North and South America, Africa and Asia (China) but such fossils were not known from India.
Image Source: nature-com/scientificreports
Former director of Birbal Sahni Institute Palaeosciences Sunil Bajpai, who is presently the Chair Professor of Vertebrate Paleontology in the Department of Earth Sciences, IIT-Roorkee and his IITian colleague Debajit Datta, carried out the detailed study of the fossils.
Image Source: nature-com/scientificreports
The rocks in which it was found are dated to be around 167 million years old which makes this new Indian sauropod not only the oldest known dicraeosaurid, but also globally the oldest diplodocoid, said Sunil Bajpai.
Image Source: nature-com/scientificreports
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