New genus and species of large theropod dinosaur named Alpkaraqsh Kyrgyzics. It was discovered in the Middle Jurassic Barabansai Formation in the northern Fergana Basin of Kyrgyzstan.
Alpkaraqsh Kyrgyzics roamed the Earth during the Callovian Period of the Jurassic Period, between 165 and 161 million years ago.
This ancient predator was 7 to 8 metres (23 to 26 feet) long and had highly prominent “eyebrows” on a part of the skull behind the eye sockets, called the postorbital bone, which indicates the presence of horns in this area.
Alpkaraqsh Kyrgyzics belongs to Metriacanthosauridae, a group of medium- to large-sized allosauroid theropod dinosaurs characterized by high, arched skulls, elongated, dish-like neural spines, and slender hind limbs.
“Theropod dinosaurs are well-known predators, similar to modern birds,” said Professor Oliver Rauhut from the SNSB – Bayerische Staatssammlung für Paläontologie und Geology and his colleagues.
“A wide variety of theropods are known from the Mesozoic Era, the age of dinosaurs.”
“Just as lions today live mainly in Africa and tigers only in Asia, for example, Allosaurus was widespread throughout North America and southwestern Europe during the Jurassic, but a similarly sized Allosaurus lived in China.”
However, the region between Central Europe and East Asia was previously unknown, and no large carnivorous dinosaurs from the Jurassic period were previously known to have been found in this vast area.”
Two specimens of Alpkaraqsh Kyrgyzics were recovered from the top Barabansai Formation in Kyrgyzstan, Jalal-Abad, near the city of Tashkumil.
“While the type specimen represents a subadult individual, the smaller specimen is a juvenile, indicating that it probably lived in groups,” the paleontologists said.
Alpkaraqsh Kyrgyzics is the first diagnosable theropod species from the Jurassic of Central Asia in western China.
We suggest that metriocanthosaurid dinosaurs originated in Southeast Asia during the Late Early or Early Middle Jurassic and rapidly became the dominant group of apex theropod predators in many ecosystems on the continent during the Jurassic.
Alpkaraqsh Kyrgyzics “The discovery of a metriacanthosaurid dinosaur fossil isn’t necessarily a surprise, but it fills a major gap in our knowledge of Jurassic theropods,” Prof Rauhut said.
“This discovery provides important new insights into the evolution and biogeography of these animals.
This discovery paper issued this month in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.
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Oliver W. M. Rauhut others A new theropod dinosaur from the Callovian-Balabansai Formation of Kyrgyzstan. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 201(4):zlae090;doi:10.1093/zoolinnean/zlae090
Source: www.sci.news
