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40 years ago a group of Argentine pantheologists discovered, in the heart of Patagonia, the skeleton of a Carnotaurus sastreithe only known species of the extinct genus of dinosaurs Carnotauruswhich with its three meters high and up to nine meters long, and with the unique shape of its skull that protrudes and forks into what at first glance look like horns, quickly became one of the most famous of its species.
That is why today, after another group of 70 scientists from around the world joined the project The end of the dinosaur era in Patagonia to understand the changes that the ecosystems of the region underwent before the mass extinction, and they will find that the Carnotaurus shared its territory 69 million years ago with its prey and with another less ferocious predator, which they called Koleken inacayalithe entire Earth cast its eyes on the south of the continent.
EL COLOMBIANO spoke with Diego Pol, an Argentine paleontologist famous for the discovery of the largest dinosaur so far known, the Patagotitan mayorumand who is the person in charge of directing this investigation.
What were the hypotheses you had in the research? The end of the dinosaur era in Patagonia And why do they choose that territory to develop them?
“One of the questions we wanted to test the hypotheses is whether or not there was a decline in biodiversity, prior to the great extinction of the dinosaurs. It is still not very clear if in the millions of years prior to the great extinction there was environmental and ecosystem deterioration and a decline in biodiversity, and the final extinction and the fall of the meteorite was the straw that broke the camel’s back, or if On the contrary, biodiversity was in a good state and the extinction was very abrupt and sudden.
For this it is essential to have data from different parts of the world and currently the data we have from all of South America is very scarce compared to that of North America, for example, so we believe that Patagonia has great potential to open up a very large amount of data. important to test precisely what I am talking about.”
What is it going to mean for science to resolve those hypotheses you mention?
“Well, the extinction of the dinosaurs is one of the five great mass extinctions that have occurred in the history of life. It was an extinction where three out of four species that lived at that point disappeared, and of course we know that it occurred due to alterations in ecosystems, climate and the incidence of sunlight, but if we understand what were the factors that contributed to “If these mass extinction events occurred, at a time when we are facing climate changes and degradation of natural ecosystems, we will be able to have clues about whether or not we are currently facing a sixth extinction and thus propose possible solutions.”
Within the framework of this investigation, having found the remains of the carnivorous dinosaur, which they called Koleken inacayali, captured the world’s press, what was that discovery like and how did you realize that it was a new species?
“This discovery occurred within the framework of explorations that we are doing in more than 20 locations in Patagonia trying to find fossils of all types. We have found everything from microscopic fossils to dinosaur remains, luckily, of all sizes and varieties, and among them were the remains of this carnivorous dinosaur.
As soon as we found it, we knew that it was a member of the Abelisauridae family due to anatomical details of the foot claw and also from fragments of the skull that were found, as they have unique anatomical characteristics.
Now, we had to wait a long time to remove the skeleton, take it to the laboratory and prepare it to be able to analyze all the anatomy and compare it with the known species, and thus, just now, realize that it was a new species.”
What story were they able to put together around the Koleken, starting, of course, from the remains found?
“Well, one interesting thing is that it is a member of the Abelisauridae family, and, therefore, it is a close relative of a very famous dinosaur, perhaps the most famous in all of Patagonia: the Carnotaurusa carnivorous dinosaur that has horns, although this one we found does not have horns and has other differences in the legs, in the arterial column, and in the skull.”
And what do these differences indicate?
“That at that time, in that ecosystem, there were at least two carnivores from the same family coexisting, which is an indication that it was an ecosystem productive enough to feed two species.
It is something like what we can see today, with the puma and the jaguar, which are two predators that coexist in some ecosystems when their conditions are good enough, since in deteriorated ecosystems the jaguar tends to disappear.
So, finding two carnivores in the same place tells us that there was a good life in the territory, which is related to the questions of the project.”
