Scientists have discovered two new Dinosaur species in China. This finding is the first vertebrate discovered in that region. Several fossils have emerged from China’s northwest region in recent years, including Xinjiang and the Turpan-Hami Basin. The fossils include several pterosaurs, preserved eggs and embryos as well as fossil fragments of spinal vertebrae and rib cages, which scientists initially identified as belonging to three mystery Dinosaur. The researchers have since determined that two of those specimens were from previously unknown species.
Scientists have named Silutitan Sinensis which means silu or Silk Road in Mandarin and Hamititan xinjiangensis. Both incorporate the Greek word titan,which means giant, about their size. The Silutitan species are 65.6 feet long and the Hamilton variety is 55.77 feet long. That makes the Dinosaur almost as large as blue whales, which range from 75 to 98 feet depending on the hemisphere they dwell in.
The researchers, from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the National Museum of Brazil, published their findings in Scientific Reports, part of the Nature family of journals. The fossil fragments extracted dated to the early Cretaceous period, about 120 to 130 million years ago. The species belong to the sauropod family, a group of plant-eating Dinosaur known for their signature long necks, and that were the largest animals to ever walk the earth.
The third specimen that researchers studied was not a new species but may have been a somphospondylan sauropod, a group of Dinosaur that lived from the late Jurassic to late Cretaceous periods. Researchers have made many discoveries in China over the past few decades, shedding more light on the diversity of sauropods in East Asia, said the study, though there are debates over the relationships between species and their taxonomic classification, and where they fall in the Dinosaur family tree.
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