Meraxes gigas had tiny forelimbs just like Tyrannosaurus rex.
Paleontologists have announced the discovery of new giant dinosaur species that had massive head and tiny forelimbs, just like Tyrannosaurus rex. The findings about the discovery of the new species Meraxes gigas have been published in the journal Current Biology. In the piece, the researchers said that both the apex predators evolved their proportionately tiny arms independently. They further said that these forelimbs were not a result of some evolutionary accident but gave both T-rex and Meraxes gigas certain survival advantages.
The new dinosaur species has been named after a fictional dragon in the Game of Thrones book series. It was dug up over the course of four years during field expeditions in the northern Patagonia region of Argentina, starting with the skull which was found in 2012.
Since then, the paleontologists have been carefully preparing and examining the skeleton.
Here are a crucial things to know about Meraxes gigas:
- The skull of the dinosaur is just over four feet long, while the entire animal would have been some 36 feet long, according to researchers. They calculated its weight to be around four metric tons.
- Its arms were two feet long, said the paleontologists, by examining the fossil which they said were "well preserved".
- T-rexes went extinct 20 million years before Meraxes gigas arose, and the two species were far apart on the evolutionary tree.
- The Meraxes belong to tyrannosaurids and carcharodontosaurids group of dinosaurs.
- They roamed the Earth between 90 to 100 million years ago during the Cretaceous period when the region had more forests and much closer to the sea, according to senior author Peter Makovicky from the University of Minnesota.
- The average age of these dinosaurs was 40 and its skull was replete with crests, furrows, bumps and small hornlets.