Date: March 11, 2016
Source: University of Birmingham
A new fossil reptile that lived 250
million years ago in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, southernmost Brazil has
been discovered by an international team of researchers. The species has been
identified from a mostly complete and well preserved fossil skull.
An international team of scientists, from
three Brazilian universities and one UK
university, have discovered a new fossil reptile that lived 250 million years
ago in the state of Rio Grande do Sul,
southernmost Brazil
The fossil was discovered in the
beginning of 2015 by a team from the Paleobiology Laboratory of the
Universidade Federal do Pampa (Unipampa), in a
Triassic rock exposure near the city of São
Francisco de Assis
The name Teyujagua comes from
the language of the Guarani ethnic group and means 'fierce lizard'. It
references a mythological beast called Teyú Yaguá, usually depicted as a lizard
with a dog´s head. Teyujagua is very different from other fossils
from the same age. Its anatomy is intermediate between the more primitive
reptiles and a diverse and important group called 'archosauriforms'.
Archosauriformes include all the extinct dinosaurs and pterosaurs, along with
modern day birds and crocodiles.
The discovery of Teyujagua is
important because it lived just after the great Permo-Triassic mass extinction
event that occurred 252 million years ago. This extinction wiped out about 90
per cent of all species then living and was probably triggered by giant and intense
volcanic eruptions in the eastern part of what is now Russia
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