A new, gigantic dinosaur species has been discovered by an international team of paleontologists in Argentina, according to a study published this week.
Dubbed Meraxes gigas, the 9,000-pound, 36- to 39-foot-long meat-eating dinosaur is believed to have walked the Earth about 90 million years ago, during the Cretaceous Period. Meraxes had short arms and a huge skull, similar to the Tyrannosaurus rex.
In their research, published in the peer-reviewed journal Current Biology on Thursday, the paleontologists noted that Meraxes’ big skull and and small arms in particular provide key clues about the evolution of prehistoric predators – specifically how they hunted all those years ago.
Meraxes is a member of the the carcharodontosauridae family, a group of giant, carnivorous theropod dinosaurs. While the Meraxes looks similar to to the T. rex, the two are not closely related – meaning they developed their small arms and big skulls independently of each other.
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Researchers have realized that this is a trend for numerous bipedal, meat-eating dinosaurs across three dinosaur families, Peter Makovicky, one of the authors for Thursday’s study and University of Minnesota paleontologist, told USA TODAY.
“Ever since the discovery of T. rex in 1902, people have sort of scratched their heads about: ‘Why would an animal so large have such tiny arms? Were they useful?’” Makovicky said. “There’s an alternative viewpoint, which is maybe the arms are actually getting shorter as a result of some other part of the body being … optimized. And generally, people have suggested the skull obviously, because the skull is so big.”
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The skull of the Meraxes, for example, is 4 feet long, while its arms are just 2 feet long. The study’s paleontologists believe that the disparity displays an evolution in hunting over time as more predatory functions were “transferred” to the skull.
“As a result of the skull being optimized in terms of bite force and size, the arms are getting shorter,” Makovicky said. “That doesn’t mean (the arms) were completely useless. They might have had other functions, but probably in terms of hunting and feeding itself. … Lots of those functions would have moved from the forelimbs to the much bigger skulls of these animals over evolutionary time.”
The skull of the Meraxes was first found in 2012 at a site in northern Patagonia, a “dinosaur graveyard” with multiple skeletons in addition to the Meraxes, Makovicky noted.
The last bones of the Meraxes emerged in 2014, Makovicky said. In the following years, the international team of paleontologists and researchers carefully prepared the bones and compared them with those of other species.
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The Meraxes is the most complete carcharodontosaurid found from the Southern Hemisphere today. The species was named after a dragon in the “Song of Ice and Fire” book series that inspired “Game of Thrones.”
The study was co-led by Juan Canale of the National University of Río Negro and Sebastian Apesteguía of Maimónides University in Argentina.
The discovery was “a very successful international collaboration with some great colleagues and friends in Argentina … just another example of how science can reach across borders and cultures and be a really wonderful, collaborative experience,” Makovicky said.
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