British paleontologists from the University of Bath have discovered a new species of small herbivorous dinosaur on the Isle of Wight in southern England. The discovery led scientists to hypothesize that Europe had its own family of small lizards, unlike their relatives in Asia and North America. To work published In the scientific journal Cretaceous Research.
The new species was named Vectidromeus insularis. It turned out to be the second representative of the Hypsilophodont family. Hypsylophodonts were a group of agile, bipedal herbivores that lived about 125 million years ago.
Analysis of the fossils showed that the discovered hypsylophodont was the size of a chicken during its lifetime, but paleontologists admitted that they had found a juvenile specimen.
The leader of the research, Dr. According to Nicholas Longrich, the Isle of Wight dinosaur is quite different from similar creatures whose remains have previously been found in North America, Asia and various parts of the Southern Hemisphere.
As the scientist noted, it is not known exactly how ancient lizards spread to different continents after the collapse of the supercontinent Pangea. The division of land into fragments led to strong isolation, which led to increased differences between representatives of the once same species.
Paleontologists before to create A large predatory animal that lived on Earth in Brazil 40 million years before the appearance of dinosaurs.