JAKARTA - Scientists in Chile's Patagonia region are digging up the southernmost recorded dinosaur fossils outside Antarctica, including the remains of megaraptors that would dominate the food chain in the area before their mass extinction.
The megaraptor fossil, a carnivorous dinosaur that inhabited parts of South America during the Cretaceous period about 70 million years ago, was found in sizes of up to 10 meters, according to 'Journal of South American Earth Sciences'.
"We lost one part," Marcelo Leppe, director of the Chilean Antactic Institute (INACH), told Reuters.
"We know where there are large mammals, there are also large carnivores, but we haven't found them yet," he said.
The remains, found from the Rio de welding Valley of Chinas far south of Chile, in Magallanes Basin between 2016 and 2020, also include some of the remains of unusual uniengiana, a velociraptor-like dinosaur that may live covered in fur.
Specimen, according to University of Chile researcher Jared Amudeo, have some characteristics that do not exist in Argentina or Brazil.
"It could be a new species, which is very likely, or belonging to other closely related families of dinosaurs," he said, adding more conclusive evidence was needed.
The study also highlights the impact conditions of meteorites on the Mexican Yucatan Peninsula which may have triggered dinosaur extinction about 65 million years ago.
Leppe INACH points to a sharp drop in temperature in Patagonia today, as well as intense cold waves lasting up to several thousand years, in contrast to the very warm climate that has occurred in most of the Cretaceous period.
"The large variants we see, biodiversity, also respond to very strong environmental stimulation," Leppe said.
"This world has experienced a crisis before (the theoretical) and this is evidenced in the rocks of the Rio de weld Chinas Valley," he said.
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