Never-before-seen monster revealed after 138 million years of hiding

A creature never recorded by science has been found in Argentina's "beastland" Patagonia.

In the image recreated by scientists, the newly named monster Emiliasaura alessandrii appears with a colorful body, reptilian appearance but with legs and gait quite like an ostrich.

The Emiliasaura alessandrii monster in Argentina - (Graphic image: Jorge Gonzalez).

According to Sci-News , the new beast was identified from exposed bones at two different sites in Argentina's Patagonia region , which is famous for the fossils of countless dinosaur-era creatures.

The first specimen cluster includes the coracoid bone, complete right forelimb and hindlimb bones, while the second specimen cluster preserves vertebral components, an arch bone, an incomplete pelvis, and a nearly complete hindlimb.

A large research team from Argentina, Canada and several European countries collected and analyzed the specimen, identifying it as a previously unrecorded dinosaur species.

Emiliasaura alessandrii is a member of the subgroup Iguanodontia , a member of the ornithopod dinosaur group Ornithopoda.

It lived about 138 million years ago, during the early Cretaceous period, known as the golden age of the dinosaurs.

'Dinosaur diversity around the Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary is a unique chapter marked by the formation of several major lineages,' said Dr Rodolfo Coria from the National Scientific and Technical Research Council of Argentina, first author of the study.

However, the record of dinosaurs during the early Cretaceous is very limited, especially in South America.

Therefore, Emiliasaura alessandrii has appeared as a rare treasure for paleontologists, helping them a lot in completing the picture of the beast world of this period.

Research on this unique creature has just been published in the scientific journal Cretaceous Research.