Customize Consent Preferences

We use cookies to help you navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. You will find detailed information about all cookies under each consent category below.

The cookies that are categorized as "Necessary" are stored on your browser as they are essential for enabling the basic functionalities of the site. ... 

Always Active

Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.

No cookies to display.

Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features.

No cookies to display.

Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.

No cookies to display.

Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.

No cookies to display.

Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customized advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyze the effectiveness of the ad campaigns.

No cookies to display.

ADVERTISEMENT

The Largest Dinosaur Fossil Excavated for the First Time in South Africa

Scientists have excavated the largest dinosaur fossil which would have been the largest terrestrial animal on our planet.

A team of scientists from South Africa, UK and Brazil led by University of Witwatersrand have discovered a fossil of a new species of dinosaur in South Africa thought to be a related to brontosaurus. This early Jurassic dinosaur weighed a huge 26,000 pounds i.e. double the size of an African elephant, and stands four meters at hip. It has been named ‘Ledumahadi mafube’ meaning ‘giant thunderclap at dawn’ in the indigenous language Sesotho of the region where it was discovered.

An evolutionary transition

Ledumahadi is closely related to sauropod dinosaurs including the well-known species Brontosaurus and Diplodocus. It was a plant-eating herbivore, had thick limbs and was a quadruped i.e. it walked on all four legs in a posture similar to modern elephants. Compared to sauropod’s long, slender columnar limbs, Ledumahadi’s forelimbs were more crouched i.e. it had more flexed limbs like primitive dinosaurs. Their ancestors walked on two legs only and they must have adapted to walk on all four and that is why they grew larger to support digestion as they were herbivores.

Researchers compared fossil data from dinosaurs, reptiles etc who walked on two or four legs and they measured limb size and thickness. This is how they concluded Ledumahadi’s posture and its way of walking on all four limbs. It is understood that many other dinosaurs must have experimented walking on all four limbs which could optimally balance a bigger body. Based upon these collective observations, researchers say that Ledumahadi was definitely a ‘transitional’ dinosaur, as it had ‘crouched’ yet very thick limbs to support its large body. Their limb bones– both arms and legs – are very robust and similar in shape to giant sauropod dinosaurs but obviously thicker while sauropods had more slender limbs. The evolution of four-legged postures came before their giant bodies. Just sheer size and elephant-like limb posture helped them, example sauropods, to become one of the most dominant dinosaur groups during the Jurassic era. Ledumahadi definitely represents a transitional stage between two major groups of dinosaurs. The group of early dinosaurs were experimenting with various ways of becoming bigger in size during the first tens of millions of years of their evolution. What it means for research is that the evolutionary transition from a small, bipedal creature to a large, quadrupled sauropod is a complex path and this evolution certainly led to survival and achieving dominance.

The discovery published tells us that even more than 200 million years ago, these dinosaurs were the largest vertebrates to be present on the planet, and this time period was almost 40-50 million years earlier than giant sauropods were first seen. The new dinosaur is closely related to giant dinosaurs who lived in Argentina around that time supporting the idea that all continents that we see today were assembled as Pangea – a supercontinent comprised of world’s land mass during Early Jurassic. And at that time this region of South Africa was not mountainous as we see it today but was flat and semi-arid with shallow streams. Certainly, it was a thriving ecosystem. Like Ledumahadi, many other dinosaurs – both giant and tiny – roamed the place at the time. It is fascinating that South Africa has helped to understand the rise of giant dinosaurs during Jurassic era.

***

{You may read the original research paper by clicking the DOI link given below in the list of cited source(s)}

Source(s)

McPhee BW et al 2018. Giant Dinosaur from the Earliest Jurassic of South Africa and the Transition to Quadrupedality in Early Sauropodomorphs. Science. 28(19). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2018.07.063

***

SCIEU Team
SCIEU Teamhttps://www.scientificeuropean.co.uk
Scientific European® | SCIEU.com | Significant advances in science. Impact on humankind. Inspiring minds.

Subscribe to our newsletter

To be updated with all the latest news, offers and special announcements.

Most Popular Articles

Climate Change: Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Air Quality are not Two Separate Problems

Climate change as a result of global warming attributed to...

German Cockroach Originated in India or Myanmar  

The German cockroach (Blattella germanica) is world’s most common...
- Advertisement -
93,060FansLike
47,191FollowersFollow
1,772FollowersFollow
30SubscribersSubscribe