Discover the oldest carnivorous dinosaur

Fossils from the Tam Diep era were discovered revealing a whole new species of hunting prey standing at the top of the food chain.

The new species, named Gnathovorax cabreirai , lived on Earth 230 million years ago, when South America was still part of the Pangea supercontinent. They were the first predators to dominate the land before larger carnivorous dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus rex and Allosaurus appeared.

The reconstruction of the Gnathovorax cabreirai is based on a nearly complete fossil.(Photo: SWNM).

G. cabreirai is about 3m long and weighs almost half a ton, significantly larger than most prey and dinosaurs living at the same time. Fossils excavated in southern Brazil are preserved almost intact, showing the powerful jaw structure and sharp claws that turn them into "killing machines" in the Three Gorges.

The researchers used computerized tomography (CT Scan) to reconstruct the brain of G. cabreirai and found them to be good vision hunters."Soft tissue remodeling reveals previously unseen neurological anatomical aspects of dinosaurs, including the development of a brain lobe that controls eye and head movements , " said the biologist. Rodrigo Muller from Santa Maria University, a member of the research team said.

Regarding the name "Gnathovorax cabreirai" , the first letter means "crows function" , while the other is named after Dr. Sergio Furtado Cabreira, a biologist who discovered the fossil skeleton in Rio state. Grande do Sul, Muller explained. The findings have been published in the journal PeerJ .

1. Identify giant carnivorous dinosaurs
2. Discovered new carnivorous dinosaurs that once lived in the desert