Washington, June 11 : A rare hundred-million-year old dino fossil found in Australia has led scientists to suggest a link between South American and Aussie dinosaurs.
According to a report in National Geographic News, the fossil belonged to a two-legged meat eater, or theropod, that is closely related to Megaraptor namunhuaiquii, a giant, big-clawed carnivore from Argentina.
The discovery could help redraw the world map during the dinosaur era, researchers said.
That’s because the newfound Australian dinosaur shows that animals could travel across the prehistoric supercontinent of Gondwana during the Cretaceous period, about
145 to 65 million years ago.
This in turn suggests that Gondwana’s Southern Hemisphere landmasses broke up later than traditionally thought.