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Thai paleontologists have discovered a new species of dinosaur thanks to fossils found in the province of Kalasin, in the north-east of the country: a herbivore between 18 and 20 meters long, as long as an articulated bus. The BBC reports it.
An Upper Jurassic herbivore
According to the study published in the scientific journal Scientific Reportsthis herbivorous dinosaur, called Uragasaurus kalasinensis, is believed to have lived about 150 million years ago.
The vertebra that revealed the species
Apirut Nilpanapan of Mahasarakham University, lead author of the study, told BBC Thai that the site where the discovery was made, Phu Noi, contained a wide variety of Upper Jurassic fossils. What now led to the discovery of the new species was a recovered dorsal vertebra – a bone from the middle or upper back – that had distinctive features. A CT scan revealed that the dinosaur belonged to the Mamenchisauridae family, sauropods characterized by extremely long necks, which probably allowed them to reach vegetation at different heights.
The name comes from the Naga snake
The name Uragasaurus combines the Sanskrit term hurricane – «serpent», literally «he who moves on the chest» – in Greek saurus“lizard”. The choice is not random: the very long neck of the mamenchisaurids recalls the image of the snake and the Naga, the mythological creature that runs through Thai culture. The name of the species, kalasinensispays homage to the province where the fossils were unearthed.
A new species from a single bone
The species was established on the basis of a single anterior dorsal vertebra, which is exceptionally well preserved. It was the CT scan that revealed its internal structure: the air-filled cavities – the same ones found in modern birds – which lightened the skeleton. In mamenchisaurids the neck could represent about half the total length of the animal and be composed of 17 to 19 vertebrae, compared to 13-15 in most sauropods: Uragasaurus it could probably lift it up to nine meters, as high as a three-story building.
Thailand’s fifteenth dinosaur
Uragasaurus kalasinensis it is the fifteenth dinosaur species officially recognized in Thailand and the first mamenchisaurid ever named in Southeast Asia: until now these sauropods were known almost only from China. The Phu Noi site, one of the richest vertebrate deposits in the area, has yielded over 6,000 finds: 150 million years ago it was an ecosystem of rivers, floodplains and oxbow lakes, populated by fish, turtles, ancient crocodiles, pterosaurs and dinosaurs.