Revealing the oldest carnivorous dinosaur ever existed, 7.5 meters long and weighs 1 ton

A group of scientists announced on Wednesday that they have successfully excavated the remains of the "Saltriovenator zanellai" dinosaur in southern Italy , known to be the oldest large predator ever existed. in. It is estimated that this species is about 7.5 meters long and weighs at least 1 ton, living in the early Jurassic period.

They predicted that after the animal died, its body somehow drifted out to sea and sunk to the bottom. For months or maybe years, the corpse was gouged out by many sea creatures and then fossilized. The bone mark shows the gnawing of sharks, small fish, and small holes caused by sea worms.

Paleontologist Cristiano Dal Sasso of Milan's Museum of Natural History said: "This is a really unique discovery," he led the study published in PeerJ magazine. Usually dead dinosaurs will be "cleaned up" by terrestrial creatures, or sometimes insects. However, the pieces of Saltriovenator's bones showed that at least three marine species did.

Saltriovenator lived 200 million years ago in the early Jurassic period.

Saltriovenator, combining the characteristics of primitive carnivorous dinosaurs with more modern species. It signaled the rise of even larger hunting predators in the Jurassic and Cretaceous period.

The name of this species, "Saltrio" means the city where it was discovered in Italy, the "venator" equivalent of "hunter" in English means "predator . " The meaning of the name "Saltriovenator" means "hunter from Saltrio". The dinosaur walks on two legs, the skull is longer than 80cm, the teeth are sharp and the front legs have 4 fingers, of which 3 fingers are equipped with claws. The Saltriovenator was excavated 24 years old, so it is still not fully mature.

Living in the early Jurassic period, this is the oldest species . It appeared in front of large carnivorous dinosaurs 25 million years, and discovered that the species also illuminated the bird's three-finger hand.

Compare size with a human.

Dal Sasso suggested that birds today evolved from ancient dinosaurs, with many common biological characteristics."We have to make it clear that the non-bird dinosaurs are extinct, because the birds (that exist) are dinosaurs," he wrote in the email.

Carnivorous dinosaurs that include the Saltriovenator (theropod) . It is believed that in the process of evolution, they picked up the two front limbs and transformed to catch prey, this is the premise to create the wings of birds later.

Paleontologist Cristiano Dal Sasso (left) and his colleagues.

Hans Sues, a geologist and paleontologist at the National Museum of Natural History wrote in an email: "Many fossils show how birds evolved from carnivorous dinosaurs. small size ". The oldest bird discovered was 150 million years ago, with fully developed wings but on the other hand, still quite like dinosaurs.

Fossils were discovered in 1996 by an amateur excavator, Angelo Zanella. The study has been conducted for more than 20 years from discovering a new species until the mystery was deciphered today."Saltriovenator zanellai" is the full name of this species with "zanellai" to honor Zanella.