Prehistoric predator appeared to be from Central Asia
It turns out that the predatory dinosaur of Alvarezsauridae comes from our territories, and not from South America, as it was supposed before.
This conclusion was reached by Russian scientists from the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, after washing about 300 tons of land collected during the expedition to Uzbekistan in 1997-2006.
As a result of washing, several hundred thousand bones were found, and paleontologists identified bones of dinosaurs of Alvarezsauridae among them. These predators, who lived 90 million years ago, were not giants. Their body was no more than two meters long. Like most dinosaur predators, they had a long tail and small forelegs.
Previously, the ancient bones of these dinosaurs were found in South America, and it was still believed that these dinosaurs are “South Americans”, that is, lived on the territory of Argentina. However, Central Asian findings say that these reptiles come from Central Asia. This is the opinion of Alexander Averyanov, Head of Laboratory of the Zoological Institute. In his opinion, the structure of the hand and the shape of the hind limbs of the “Asian” dinosaur were more suitable for fast running.
In addition, many more different types of these dinosaurs were found during the expedition to Uzbekistan, than before in Argentina. These data make it possible to state that the reptiles of this species are of Central Asian origin, and their early “relatives” moved to South America.
Let us remind, there is a famous plateau with perfectly preserved traces of dinosaurs in Lebap region of Turkmenistan. This number of prints – about 3 thousand traces – relating the Jurassic period, all in one place is nowhere else found on the planet.
