Fossils were discovered in March 2019, but due to Covid, the fossils had to be distributed between scientists who analysed them at home.
A team of Argentine paleontologists digging in Patagonia has discovered the remains of the largest dinosaur belonging to the raptor family ever recorded.
The dinosaur, a new species named Maip macrothorax, was between nine and 10-metres-long, while other "megaraptors" were no longer than nine metres, said Mauro Aranciaga Rolando, one of the scientists who participated in the discovery.
"This animal is very large in size and we were able to recover a lot of remains," Aranciaga Rolando told the Reuters news agency on Wednesday when the fossils were shown at the Bernardino Rivadavia Natural Sciences Argentine Museum in the capital Buenos Aires.
The fossils were discovered in March 2019 in the Patagonian province of Santa Cruz, days before strict Covid-19 pandemic restrictions were enforced, said the National Scientific and Technical Research Council, to which the experts who found the dinosaur belong.
Two Japanese scientists also participated in the Argentine expedition.
Due to the pandemic, paleontologists initially had to distribute the fossils between them and analyse them at home.
Dinosaur roamed some 70 million years ago
The carnivorous dinosaur is thought to have inhabited what is now the southern tip of Argentina 70 million years ago during the Cretaceous period.
Megaraptors were animals with an agile skeleton, a long tail that allowed them to maneuver and balance, a long neck and an elongated skull with more than 60 small teeth, said Aranciaga Rolando, who explained that the sharp-ended limbs of "Maip" were the animal's most dangerous weapon.
Copyright © 2024 TRT World.