A new dog-sized dino species that wandered the Earth 220 million years ago has been found. The Maleriraptor kuttyi is believed to be one of the earliest killer dinos in history. The now-extinct dino is thought to have roamed during the Triassic period, standing at 3.2 feet tall and stretching to 6.5 feet long – kind of like a big ol’ Great Dane. It was part of the Herrerasauria fam, which was full of meat-eating dinos. Dr. Martín Ezcurra from Argentina’s Natural Science museum said, “Herrerasaurs are like the OG predators in the dino world.”
The dino bones were dug up more than 40 years ago in Telangana, India, but it took till now for scientists to figure out which species it belonged to. The Herrerasauria fossils were previously found in South and North America, but this new discovery shows that these creatures were all over the place. The Indian dinos are thought to have outlived their counterparts in other parts of the world, possibly because India had a similar climate to South America back in the Triassic period. This find comes after a massive horned dino species was discovered in Egypt, showing just how diverse and widespread dinos really were.
The dino discovery game is always changing, with new finds and reanalyses happening all the time. Not really sure why this matters, but it’s kind of cool to think about how these ancient creatures once roamed the same places we do now. Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like every dino find brings us a little closer to understanding the world they lived in. And who knows what other surprises are waiting to be unearthed in the future.
