The multinational team led by Dr. Juan Canale from the Ernesto Bachmann Museum of Paleontology and the National University of Río Negro (Argentina) said that based on the almost complete skull and the partial skeleton, they identified a new species of dinosaur belonging to the Carcharodontosauridae family. . , belonging to the group of “theropods”.

According to Sci-News , Meraxes gigas looks quite similar to T-rex, the most famous member of the theropod group, with strong hind legs, two shrunken forelimbs, and a large head with terrifying teeth.

Meraxes gigas – Graphic image by Carlos Papolio, member of the research team

The dating results show that it is 94 million years old, which means that it lived in the Cretaceous period. The dinosaur is huge in size with a body length of 11 meters, weighs 4 tons when alive, and is a powerful carnivorous dinosaur.

According to Dr. Canale, the species’ stunted “arms” could be instrumental in supporting reproductive behavior, such as supporting females during mating and helping them get up when they fall.

The skeleton of Meraxes gigas is one of the most complete carcharodontosaurid specimens ever found in the southern hemisphere.

“Interestingly, they have the same body map as tyrannosaurs like the T-rex. But they’re not particularly related to the T-rex. They come from very different branches of the dinosaur family tree. They eat meat” – Professor Peter Makovicky from the University of Minnesota (USA), a member of the research team, said.

This is one of only three meat-eating theropods to have evolved with a nearly identical body structure, suggesting that the shape seemed to offer special advantages, including ridiculously shrunken “arms,” and sparking heated debate in the scientific community.

This fossil is a very valuable find in paleontology, as the family Carcharodontosauridae was intrigued when evidence for other species in this family had previously shown that they evolved surprisingly quickly, and then suddenly disappearing from the fossil record is also very fast.