New Dinosaur Contemporary With T-Rex Unearthed In Mexico

By Dee Chisamera
16:25, February 13th 2008
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New Dinosaur Contemporary With T-Rex Unearthed In Mexico

Scientists made an amazing discovery in the Mexican state of Coahuila, after unearthing a 72-million-year-old fossil of what they believe to be a giant specimen of a crested duck-billed dinosaur, reaching up to 35 feet in length in adulthood. The newfound dinosaur is just one of the many herbivorous duckbills that lived in the region at the same time with the Tyrannosaurus Rex, researchers said.

The specimen found lengthened approximately 25 feet and appeared not to be fully grown. The researchers uncovered an almost complete skull and a partial skeleton in what now is just an arid land. But apparently 72 million years ago, this was a land dominated by lush vegetation, perfect conditions for herbivorous species of dinosaurs to thrive.

Velafrons coahuilensis, how it has been called is the most complete dinosaur ever found in Mexico. Other specimens have been uncovered in recent expeditions, but Velafrons will certainly help scientists form a wider perspective on what North America was like in the Cretaceous Period. The name Velafrons coahuilensis could be translated into “sailed forehead from Coahuila”.

Explorations in the regions have uncovered a series of bone beds of other duck-billed and horned dinosaurs, which started the idea that large herds of dinosaurs could have been killed by powerful storms that devastated their habitat. At the same time, upon analyzing the spreading area, scientists realized that the giant species coexisted in relatively small areas and were not as dispersed as expected.

The dinosaur specimen found in Mexico resembles another duck-billed dinosaur, the Corythosaurus, found in Alberta, Canada. The Corythosaurus lived three million years earlier than Velafrons, and scientists said they will try to analyze the differences between the two communities of herbivores.

“With this discovery, we are starting to see how the dinosaurs that lived in these regions are different,” said Don Brinckman of the Royal Tyrell Museum of Paleontology in Alberta, National Geographic reports. “Once we understand these patterns at a single time, we hope to start tracking how these patterns change with changing climate.”



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