Post date: Sep 09, 2010 4:38:51 PM
Spain's Cuenca Museum of Science unveils the fossil of a newly-discovered humpback dinosaur that roamed the earth 130 million years ago and could provides clues to the origin of birds.
CUENCA, SPAIN (SEPTEMBER 9, 2010) FORTA - The fossil of a previously unknown humpback dinosaur that may give clues to the origin of birds was unveiled on Friday (September 9) at the Cuenca Museum of Science in Spain.
The fossil of ´Pepito´, as the concavenator corcovatus, is fondly called by paleontologists who unearthed him, is one of the best preserved in Europe.
"It´s an almost complete example, jointed, all its bones are practically in the same position they were when the animal was alive. Also it preserves skin and soft matter which gives us a great deal of information about these creatures," Professor Francisco Ortega, the scientist in charge of the team that discovered the dinosaur, said.
Pepito sports a peculiar hump and bumps on the forearms. The latter is evidence that feathers began to appear earlier than scientists thought, Nature magazine, where the findings where published, said we have things here that could be initial elements of what later could be bird feathers.
Ortega from Madrid´s National University of Distance Learning, said:
"The hump, however, is more of a mystery. Ortega and his team believe it is possible the structure acted like a cooling system, like an elephant's ears, or for energy storage, like a camel's hump. However, the report in Nature magazine, said the true function could only be determined when more fossils with similar features are unearthed."
Four metre long, meat-eating Pepito lived during the early cretaceous period, about 130 million years ago, and he died near Cuenca in the semi-arid plateau called Las Hoyas, where Ortega and his team discovered his fossilized remains. The area is likely to have been a subtropical wetland, comparable to the modern everglades, during the early Cretaceous, Nature reported.