Chilean palaeontologists finally presented the dinosaur they have found three years ago in Patagonia. The dinosaur that has a highly unusual tail. They have named the dinosaur Stegouros elengassen. They have found the remaining of Stegouros elengassen in 2018 at Cerro Guido during the time of an excavations. Cerro Guido is a well-known site to scientists where they harbour fossils.
In the beginning, the researchers thought they have found the remaining of an already existing species of dinosaur until examined its tail. The palaeontologists were amazed by the structure of its tail.
The tail of this species was covered with seven pairs of osteoderms, which worked as a weapon. Osteoderms are bony structures of plaques which is located in the dermal layers of the skin of the dinosaur. These osteoderms were aligned on either side of the dinosaur’s tail.
Palaeontologists also discovered that the skeleton of the dinosaur suggests, it has lived 71 to 74.9 million years ago. The dinosaur was about two meters long and it weighted around 150 kilograms.
The research paper of the scientists has been published in the journal Nature. The scientists are hopeful that this new finding will help to uncover a whole new range of armoured dinosaur.
From this discovery, the scientists also discovered the fact that present-day America and Antarctica were close to each other millions of years ago.
