Scientists announced the discovery of fossil remains of a new species of dinosaur that was a forerunner of much later carnivores like Allosaurus, Spinosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex. The two-legged dinosaur was called by scientists Dracoraptor, a name that means "dragon thief." This is reminding of the red dragon on the Welsh flag.
The dinosaur lived in the early years of the Jurassic Period, around 200 million years ago. The fossil discovered by Welsh scientists is 7-foot-long (2.1 meters).
PLOS ONE reported that this is not an adult "dragon thief" dinosaur. Adult specimens probably were reaching around 10 feet (3 meters), according to paleontologist Steven Vidovic of Britain's University of Portsmouth.
Vidovic explained that the Dracoraptor fossils were discovered on a beach near the Welsh town of Penarth, in the year 2014. With 40 percent of the skeleton unearthed, they are some of the most complete dinosaur remains from this time, Voice of America News informed.
Scientific American shared that the world was recovering from a mass extinction at the beginning of the Jurassic Period, when the meat-eating dinosaur from Wales was living. This modest species paved the way for other most fearsome predators of bigger dimensions.
Not long before Dracoraptor appeared, at the Triassic Period's end, almost half of the species on Earth went extinct. It is yet unclear for science what the cause of this primordial calamity was. Among the hypotheses is included volcanic activity, an asteroid impact or climate change.
At the end of the Triassic, the biggest land predators were big four-legged reptiles called rauisuchians and crocodile like reptiles called phytosaurs populated the rivers. The Jurassic Period mass extinction event was crucial in allowing dinosaurs to become the dominant animals on Earth. Phytosaurs and rauiscuchians disappeared in the mass extinction, leaving the way open for the dinosaur carnivores. Until the mass extinction event they were only moderate in size; however after the event they came to become the top land predators.
