New Revelation with the Discovery of New Species of ‘Titanosaur’

Paleontologists in Egypt have found fossil fragments from a new species of dinosaur better known as Titanosaurian sauropod that walked on the Earth around 80 million years ago (Cretaceous period). The discovery is said to be answering a long-standing mystery about the evolution history of dinosaur. 

Paleontologists have named the creature Mansourasaurus shahinae after the Mansoura University Vertebrate Paleontology program, which is discovering the evolution history of the 14,000-pound Titanosaur.

The fossilized skeleton that is found includes skull element and all other parts was discovered near the Dakhla Oasis in the Egyptian Western Desert.

Scientists are of the opinion that the dinosaur, which lived about 80 million years ago, is an “incredible discovery”. The herbivorous dinosaur was of the length of a school bus and weighed same as an elephant. It had a long neck and bony plates embedded in its skin, which roamed across the African landscape during the final days of the dinosaurs.

The Cretaceous period, roughly about 80 to 66 million years ago and the Titanosaur found is among of the few fossils found so far in Africa of that period. The Cretaceous period also marks the final chapter about the age of dinosaurs, which came to an difficult end when a giant meteor smacked into what is now the Yucatán Peninsula.

“This Titanosaur is one of the wonderfully preserved dinosaur which belongs to the end era of the Dinosaurs in Africa, that we paleontologists had been searching for a long time.” said co-author Dr. Matt Lamanna, from Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

When dinosaurs first emerged, during the earlier years of the dinosaurs, throughout much of the Triassic and Jurassic periods, they populated a single land mass made up of connected continents joined together as the supercontinent called Pangaea. But at the height of nature’s changes, during the Cretaceous period, the continents began splitting apart and shifting towards the configuration we see today, many terrestrial dinosaurs became separated by vast oceans during that time.

This natural phenomenon, also had a profound effect on the dinosaurs, who were suddenly separated and merged into a different populations, each charting a new evolutionary course.

Owing to the poor fossil record, paleontologists weren’t sure how African dinosaurs were separated from their neighbors. Mansourasaurus is therefore considered a “key new dinosaur species” as it’s filling in the gaps of the Africa’s dinosaur history.

Some of the paleontologists are of the view that Cretaceous Africa was essentially an island continent filled with unique species like today’s Australia. But other experts have suggested the African land mass still had ties to its neighbors. And the discovery is the first “unambiguous” evidence that some dinosaur could still move between Africa and Europe during this period in history.

The new research with the discovery of the Titanosaur published in Nature Ecology and Evolution shows that Cretaceous-era dinosaurs living in Africa and Europe weren’t completely cut off from each other, as is typically assumed. The discovery also suggest that those dinosaurs living in Africa and Europe were not isolated as previously thought and are moving across pathways that existed between the two continents.

This Titanosaur is also more closely related to dinosaurs from Europe and Asia than it is to the dinosaur fossils found in South Africa or even further south in Africa and is also different from one of the last dinosaurs found in Africa and that have bound the scientists to think that there exist is different fauna in Africa.

The relationship between the Mansourasaurus and other species of dinosaur found in Asia and Europe is a matter of exciting study for scientists because it sheds light on how dinosaurs moved across continents. Knowing this in turn can shine a light on the evolutionary history of the animals that live there today.

Hesham Sallam is leading the team of researchers, which is exploring the fossil, says that it is the most complete specimen of a Cretaceous-era dinosaur ever discovered in Africa.

The ancient Africa is in habitat with green vegetation though many thought of it as Rocky Mountains, Gobi Desert or Patagonia as preferred dwelling site of dinosaurs. Most remarkable is that the paleontologists were able to uncover the animal’s skull, lower jaw, some vertebrae, ribs, bits of the shoulder and forelimb, and a section of its hind foot. The researchers have also found traces of bony plates and dermal plates, which are embedded in its skin for protection.

The earth and its inhabitants have more to disclose about its evolution and therefore Dr Eric Gorscak, who is also one of the co-author of the study says,  “that the Titanosaur proves that there are still many surprises left to discover in human’s quest to understand Earth’s history and how that history shaped our modern world”.

The discovery also is going to shed light on the evolution history of humankind too.