TITANOSAURUS: THE FIRST DINOSAUR IN ECUADOR

 

Written by: Stefano Egas 

Various types of dinosaurs have been found in several Latin American countries, among the main countries are Argentina and Brazil. On the other hand, we have Chile, Peru, Bolivia and Colombia with dinosaur remains in the form of thousands of fossil footprints and sometimes in the form of skeletons or isolated bones. However, Ecuador did not have any discoveries. 

Until one day a group led by palaeontologists Sebastián Apesteguía and Pablo Gallina -researchers from the Azara Foundation, together with scientists from the Department of Geology and Mines and Civil Engineering of the Private Technical University of Loja (Ecuador) discovered a great find. 👀

Analysis of the remains revealed that they were the remains of sauropod dinosaurs, the long-necked herbivores of the titanosaur group, the most abundant in the southern hemisphere. All of these dinosaurs lived between 85 and 65 million years ago and are considered the last sauropods to appear, almost on the verge of extinction of the group. 😲

The material studied consists of remains of a disarticulated and incomplete skeleton. two vertebrae of the sacrum, one of the tail and the remains of the humerus, radius and tibia.