Argentinosaurus, discovered in 1993, is the heaviest known dinosaur. Not to be outdone, Chile’s own new dinosaur, Chilesaurus, might currently be the weirdest: it was related to T. rex and Velociraptor, but it had the teeth of a plant eater and feet like a Brontosaurus (which is totally a real thing again). You might be hearing about this freak because, although it was discovered in 2004 by a seven-year-old boy named Diego (which is adorable), the study was just published in Nature yesterday.
From The Verge:
“I honestly think that no paleontologists expected early theropods [Note: your typical low slung, two legged meat-eating dinosaurs] could have ever evolved into something like this,” says Alexander Vargas, a paleontologist at the University of Chile and a co-author of the study published in Nature today. The discovery is “more than merely a new species — this is a fundamentally new body-plan within dinosaurs. […] I think it may deserve to be called ‘the platypus of dinosaurs,’ because, like the platypus, it is very old lineage with many primitive features, that nevertheless underwent great evolutionary transformations, combining traits of radically different animals,” Vargas says.
On the one hand, I’m just happy Chile has a dinosaur named after it that was probably pretty great at soccer, and I look forward to the day we all get one.
I want to hang out uptown with Boricuadon and Bachatasaurus rex.
On the other hand, I’m mad that it’s too late for this weird bastard to be in Jurassic World. The movies all take place in Costa Rica and the first movie had a scene in the DR, but there is a severe lack of representation when it comes to our Latin@ dinosaur brothers and sisters. Why can’t Chris Pratt fall in love with a Carnotaurus sastrei, played by Sofía Vergara? Just saying.