By Helen
Briggs, BBC News
Dinosaur
fossils unearthed in Madagascar
are of a new species that roamed the Earth about 90 million years ago, say US
researchers.
The remains
date back to a time when India
and Madagascar
were one landmass cut off from the rest of the world.
Revealing the
discovery in the journal PLOS ONE, scientists say the dinosaur
was a bi-pedal meat-eater about the size of a large cow.
It has been
named Dahalokely tokana, which
means "lonely small bandit".
“This just reinforces the importance of
exploring new areas around the world where undiscovered dinosaur species are
still waiting,” Joe SertichDenver Museum of Nature and Science
But the latest
discovery is the first new dinosaur species unearthed on the island in almost a
decade.
Its Malagasy
name refers to its carnivorous diet and isolation on a landmass in the middle
of the ocean.
The discovery
fills a gap in the fossil record and raises intriguing questions about the
evolution of animals on both Madagascar
and India ,
which separated at about the time this newly identified creature walked the
Earth.
Andrew Farke
of the Raymond M Alf Museum of Paleontology in Claremont , California ,
says it belongs to a group called the Abelisauridae, which were common to the
southern continents.
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