SCIENCE IN THE NEWS DAILY
New Dinosaur May Link S. American, Aussie Dinos
A rare fossil found in Australia suggests dinosaurs were able to trek north across a vast continent, scientists report.
The hundred-million-year-old fossil belonged to a two-legged meat-eater, or theropod, that is closely related to Megaraptor namunhuaiquii, a giant, big-clawed carnivore from Argentina, says a team led by Nathan Smith of the University of Chicago's Field Museum. The discovery could help redraw the world map during the dinosaur era, researchers add.
That's because the newfound Australian dinosaur shows that animals could travel across the prehistoric supercontinent of Gondwana during the Cretaceous period, about 145 to 65 million years ago. This in turn suggests that Gondwana's Southern Hemisphere landmasses broke up later than traditionally thought.
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