Image credit: Luis V. Rey
Paleontologists discovered fossils of a plant-eating dinosaur that belonged to a previously unknown species, one that was likely “talkative,” depend on the ear structure, which would’ve been adept at listening up low-frequency sounds.
The tail of the dinosaur, which lived 73 million years ago, was first discovered in 2005 within the Cerro del Pueblo Formation near Presa de San Antonio in Coahuila, northern Mexico, consistent with a latest study describing the findings.
About 8 years later, paleontologists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) in Mexico and therefore the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) worked together to recover the tail and the other remains. They needed to quickly rescue the tail that was protruding from the surface of the planet earth, which was exposed to rain and erosion, consistent with the statement.
“Although we had lost hope of finding the upper a part of the specimen, once we recovered the tail we continued digging under where it had been located,” lead author Ángel Alejandro Ramírez Velasco, from the UNAM’s Institute of Geology, said during a statement. “The surprise was that we began to seek out bones like the femur, the scapula and other elements.”
The dinosaur remains were well preserved, suggesting the individual had died in sediment-rich body of water that might are quick to blanket and protect the remains, consistent with the statement. In fact, the paleontologists were ready to recover 34 bones fragments, which made up 80% of the dinosaur’s skull, including its crest, its lower and upper jaws, palate and neurocranium, the a part of the skull that might have housed the brain.
Because the researchers could recover such a lot of the dinosaur’s skull, they were ready to compare this individual with other known species. At first, depend on its tail, the researchers knew the dinosaur belonged to a family of duck-billed dinosaurs called hadrosaurs. But they quickly realized that the crest and nose differed from those of any known hadrosaurs, and what that they had in their hands represented a latest genus and species.
The researchers named the species Tlatolophus galorum. They named the genus after the Nahua Indigneous group’s word tlahtolli, which suggests “word,” and therefore the Greek word lophus, which suggests “crest.”
The name is fitting, because the dinosaur’s crest is shaped like “virgula” or “a symbol employed by Mesoamerican peoples to represent communicative action and knowledge in itself in codices,” consistent to statement.
By examining the structure of the ear bones, the researchers were even ready to get a glimpse at how the dinosaurs may have communicated.
“We know that that they had ears with the power to receive low-frequency sounds, so that they must have peaceful but talkative dinosaurs,” Ramírez Velasco said within the statement. The dinosaurs may have also emitted loud sounds to daunt carnivores or for breeding, he said.
The findings were published in the journal Cretaceous Research.
