A PROFESSOR has discovered a new species of dinosaur that is 210 million years old.
Kimi Chapelle of Long Island has made a historic discovery in Zimbabwe – the fourth discovery ever made in the southern African nation.
Whizz, who lectures at Stony Brook University, discovered prehistoric fossils of a long-necked herbivore known as a sauropodomorph dino.
Known as one of the largest dinosaurs to walk the earth, this species would have weighed an average of 850 pounds and would have typically been found in swampy areas.
The species inhabited the area 210 million years ago during the Late Triassic period and is the first dinosaur to be named in more than half a century.
Thirty-three-year-old Kimi made the trip between 2017 and 2018, but analyzes of femur, tibia and ankle bones only recently confirmed the identity of the species.
“We could only work from, but during very daylight hours, because when you walk around at dusk and dawn, that’s when the crocodiles and hippos come out of the water,” Kimi told the New York Post.
“Even during the day you weren’t allowed to go near the water because crocs tend to grab people from the banks.
Chapelle added that “extremely aggressive” hippos appeared when she and her team were examining the fossils.
The intrepid academic now hopes the discovery will spur more excursions to Zimbabwe.
“We have more fossils from the area that we are still preparing and working on,” she continued.
“I think it gave us that extra push to try and do it early.
“Naming a new species of dinosaur is always a big career moment, and it’s something that will stay in the literature forever, no matter what happens.”
MORE DINO DISCOVERIES
It comes after scientists discovered 265-million-year-old dinosaur fossils in South America last year.
The findings were shared in a new study published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.
An international team of researchers is credited with the discovery, which was made in the rural São Gabriel region of southern Brazil.
The 265-million-year-old preserved fossils belonged to a species known as Pampaphoneus biccai.
The stunning fossil includes a complete skull, some ribs and arm bones.
Why did the dinosaurs die out?
Here’s what you need to know…
- The extinction of the dinosaurs was a sudden mass extinction on Earth
- Roughly 66 million years ago, it wiped out roughly three-quarters of the plant and animal species on our planet
- This event marked the end of the Cretaceous period and ushered in the Cenozoic era, which we are still in today
- Scientists generally believe that a massive 9 mile wide comet or asteroid crashed into Earth and devastated the planet.
- The impact is said to have triggered a persistent “shock winter” that severely damaged plant life and the food chain that relied on it.
- More recent research suggests that this impact “sparked” a major volcanic activity that also led to the extinction of life
- Some research has suggested that the number of dinosaurs was already declining due to climate change at that time
- But a study published in March 2019 claims that dinosaurs likely “thrived” before the extinction event
“The fossil was found in Middle Permian rocks, an area where bones are not so common but always bring pleasant surprises,” said lead author Mateus A. Costa Santos, a graduate student at the Paleontology Laboratory at the Federal University of Pampa (UNIPAMPA).
“Finding a new Pampaphoneus skull after such a long time was extremely important for increasing our knowledge of an animal that was previously difficult to distinguish from its Russian relatives.”
Pampaphoneus is an extinct genus of carnivorous dinocephalic therapsid that belonged to the family Anteosauridae.
This species lived until the extinction of the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous period.
It is unusual for fossils of this species to have been discovered in Brazil, as they have mostly been spotted throughout Russia and South Africa.