‘Triassic tank’ that ‘ruled the world before the dinosaurs’ found with armor 70% intact
An ancient crocodile-like beast known as a ‘tank of the Triassic’ has been found with most of its armor intact.
The plated creature is part of a group known as aetosaurs, which went extinct about 200 million years ago.
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Aetosaur fossils have been found on every continent except Australia and Antarctica.
Scientists say they “ruled the world before the dinosaurs” and were notable for their heavy armor.
Now a new aetosaur species has been discovered after scientists from Texas found a specimen with almost complete armor.
It is called Garzapelta muelleri and is thought to have lived about 215 million years ago.
The name comes from Garza County in northwest Texas, where the specimen was discovered.
And the “pelta” in the name comes from the Latin word for shield.
Impressively, the shield – the armored suit – is 70% complete and covers all major parts of the aetosaur’s body.
“We have elements from the back of the neck and shoulder area to the tip of the tail,” he said William Reyes, from the University of Texas at Austin.
“You usually find very limited material.”
The Garzapelta muelleri would have looked a lot like a modern crocodile, but with more armor.
Reyes said, “Take a modern-day crocodile and turn it into an armadillo.”
IN-CROC-IBEL!
The new aetosaur – an ancient cousin of the crocodile – would have been covered in bony plates that were embedded in the skin and fit together to form a ‘mosaic’.
It would also have had curved points along the sides to protect the body from predators.
Unlike today’s carnivorous crocodiles, the Garzapelta muelleri was likely omnivorous.
Take a modern-day crocodile and turn it into an armadillo.
Willem Reyes
Interestingly, the fossil was discovered some time ago, but has only now been classified as a new species.
It had been sitting on a shelf as part of the Texas Tech University fossil collections before it was spotted by Reyes during a visit.
“These specimens weren’t just dug up in the field yesterday,” says aetosaur expert Bill Parker, who works as a patlaeontologist in the Petrified Forest National Park.
“They’ve been hanging in the museum for decades and it just takes someone like Will to finally decide to study them and bring them to life.”
The research was published in The Anatomical Record and was co-authored by Jeffrey Martz of the University of Houston-Downtown and Bryan Small of the Museum of Texas Tech University.
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Why did the dinosaurs become extinct?
This is what you need to know…
- The extermination of the dinosaurs was a sudden mass extinction on Earth
- About 66 million years ago, it wiped out roughly three-quarters of the planet’s plant and animal species
- This event marked the end of the Cretaceous period and opened the Cenozoic era, in which we are still in today
- Scientists generally believe that a huge comet or asteroid about 15 kilometers wide crashed into Earth and destroyed the planet
- This impact would have led to a prolonged ‘impact winter’, causing serious damage to plant life and the food chain that depended on it
- More recent research suggests that this impact ‘fueled’ major volcanic activity, which also led to the wipeout of life
- Some studies have suggested that the number of dinosaurs was already declining due to climate changes
- But a study published in March 2019 claims that dinosaurs likely “thrived” before the extinction