The fossil of the last African dinosaur which was extinct 66 million years ago is discovered by a team of scientists in a phosphate mine in Northern Morocco. The research study was led by the Milner Center for Evolution at the University of Bath. The study has suggested that the distinct dinosaur fauna developed in Africa after the separation of the supercontinent Gondwana amidst the Cretaceous time frame.
According to Phys.org, the last African dinosaur which has been discovered in Moroccan mine is a smaller African contemporary of the North American Tyrannosaurus Rex or the T-Rex. The dinosaur is linked to a new species - Chenanisaurus barbaricus, which had the last lived dinosaurs on the planet earth. This species went extinct after an asteroid hit the planet 66 million years ago.
The time when the last African dinosaur went extinct and was wiped out by a massive asteroid hit, the sea levels were high being the only reason for most of the fossils being discovered from marine rocks. The discovered fossil is the evidence of a distinct fauna in the southern hemisphere.
Mail Online reported that a year ago, Dr. Nick Longrich, from the Milner Center for Evolution and the Department of Biology and Biochemistry at the University of Bath, studied an uncommon part of a jaw bone that was found in the mines at Sidi Chennane in the Oulad Abdoun Basin, Morocco. As a team with partners situated in Morocco, France, and Spain, Longrich distinguished it as having a place with an abelisaur, the last African dinosaur.
The last African dinosaur, Abelisaur, had a shorter, blunter snout and very small arms. They are believed to be the top predators at the end of the Cretaceous time in Africa, South America, Europe, and India. They used to stand on two legs. The research venture was done as a component of a global scientific collaboration that helps to create and to study fossil science accumulations in Morocco with the point of saving the nation's rich fossil legacy.
