The National Museum of Rio de Janeiro announced on Thursday that a new species of “very rare” dinosaur was discovered, a toothless beast that lived in southern Brazil 70-80 million years ago.
The small dinosaur Berthasaura leopoldinae was about 1 meter long and 80 points high. Fossil remains of him were found in excavations in the State of Paran. In the period 2011-14.
The beasts were bipedal dinosaurs, usually carnivores or omnivores, and almost all of them had teeth. The new species, however, had a beak and not teeth, unlike all those that have been found in Brazil to date, the Museum clarified.
The study, conducted jointly with the Center for Paleontology in Constanta, Santa Catarina, was published today in the journal Nature.
Paleontologist Alexander Kellner, director of the National Museum, said the fossils were in very good condition.
“We have remnants of the skull, the jaw, the spine, the pelvis and the thorax, as well as the front and rear limbs. “Bertha is one of the most complete Cretaceous dinosaurs ever discovered in Brazil.”
Paleontologists have described it as a “real surprise” that the species did not have teeth and wondered what kind of food it was. “He may have eaten differently from other beasts, but the fact that he did not have teeth does not mean that he could not eat meat,” said Geovane Alves de Souza, one of the study’s authors.
The name Berthasaura leopoldinae was given to the new species in honor of Bertha Luz, a Brazilian researcher at the National Museum and Empress Maria Leopoldina, wife of Peter I of Brazil, emperor and patron of natural history research.
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