Step aside, tyrannasaurus.
There's a new dinosaur in town and it goes by the name of Leikupal laticauda.
Not very catchy.
Hey guys, Tara here for Dnews - and if you like dinosaurs, then you're gonna love this
story.
A new fossil uncovered in Patagonia has provided the first evidence that certain dinosaurs
survived the great extinction, and existed millions of years after they were thought
to have died off.
The diplodocid sauropod is a family of long-necked, whip-tailed dinosaurs - made famous by this
scene from the second Jurassic Park movie.
They are some of the longest creatures to ever roam the earth, and they were assumed
to have gone extinct at the end of the Jurassic era - around 150 million years ago.
Thanks to this new finding, however, researchers in Argentina now have the earliest record
of them in existence, dating back to the early Cretaceous period - around 130 million years
ago.
Even more interesting, it was found in a place they never expected: South America.
Eight vertebrae were discovered in the rocky outcrops of the "Bajada Colorada," a Cretaceous-era
formation in western Argentina.
This is the first time this family of dinosaurs has been found in any southern land mass,
aside from Africa - which, according to researchers, means they must have evolved from other dinosaurs
before Africa and South America split apart.
Until now, the species was thought to be an exclusively North American dinosaur.
So this new evidence, researchers say, may help shed light on how different dinosaurs
migrated around the globe in response to climate change.
It's kind of amazing how much we continue to discover about the world around us.
And I dunno about you guys, but dinosaurs are one of the most fascinating things in
the world to me.
Hopefully you agree.
And if you have any thoughts about this finding, feel free to leave them in the comments below
- otherwise, thanks for watching!