Эрдэмтэд 120 сая жилийн настай үлэг гүрвэлийн гавлын ясны хэлтэрхийг судалсны дүнд уг махчин амьтан Европ тивд амьдарч байсныг баталжээ.
Лондонгийн Байгалийн түүхийн музейн сан хөмрөгт бараг зуун жилийн турш анхаарал таталгүй хадгалагдсан гавлын ясны хэлтэрхийг судлаачид шинэ төрөл зүйл болох Invictibellatrix amberina хэмээн тодорхойллоо. Уг олдвор нь Европ тивээс олдсон анхны мегараптор гэдгээрээ шинжлэх ухаанд онцгой ач холбогдолтой юм. Судалгааны үр дүнг Royal Society Open Science сэтгүүлд нийтэлжээ.
Уг чулуужсан яс нь 1924 онд Уайт арал дээрээс олдсон 1000 гаруй олдворын нэг хэсэг байсан бөгөөд олон арван жилийн турш ямар амьтанд хамаарах нь тодорхойгүй байв. Судлаач Кассиус Моррисон болон түүний баг гавлын ясны бүтцийг бусад махчин үлэг гүрвэлүүдтэй харьцуулан судалснаар, үүнд нугасны суваг болон цагны шил хэлбэртэй ясны сэртэн зэрэг өвөрмөц шинжүүд байгааг илрүүлжээ. Компьютерийн шинжилгээгээр уг амьтан нь мегарапторын бүлэгт багтах нь батлагдсан байна.
Ойролцоох төрөл зүйлүүдтэй харьцуулан хийсэн сэргээн босголтын дагуу Invictibellatrix amberina нь ойролцоогоор 3-4 метр урт, 1.5 метр өндөр, хүний биеийн өндөртэй дүйцэхүйц хэмжээтэй байсан гэж таамаглаж байна. Эрдэмтдийн үзэж буйгаар, энэхүү махчин амьтан нь өдтэй, 10-20 см урт сарвуутай байсан байж болох бөгөөд орчин үеийн цөөвөр чонын нэгэн адил жижиг үлэг гүрвэл, гүрвэл болон хөхтөн амьтдаар хооллодог байжээ.
Энэхүү нээлт нь мегарапторууд Азиас Европ тивээр дамжин өмнөд тив болох Гондвана руу тархсан гэсэн эрдэмтдийн таамаглалыг баталгаажуулж байна. Урьд нь Европын нутаг дэвсгэрээс ийм төрлийн махчин амьтны олдвор олдоогүй байсан нь энэхүү тархалтын түүхэнд цоорхой үүсгэж байсан юм. Хэдийгээр олдвор нь гавлын ясны жижиг хэлтэрхий боловч эртний махчин амьтдын нүүдлийн замыг тайлбарлах чухал нотолгоо болж байна.
Дэлгэрэнгүйг эх сурвалжаас харах
↓Эх сурвалжийг нээх ↓
A piece of dinosaur skull that sat in a London museum drawer for nearly a century has been identified as Invictibellatrix amberina, the first megaraptoran ever found in Europe. The fossil, about 120 million years old, backs up a long-standing idea about how these clawed predators reached the southern continents.
For more than a hundred years, the fragment was just part of the back of a head. It had no impressive jaws to put on display and no towering skeleton to assemble, and it was collected from the foot of a cliff on the Isle of Wight.
Yet that unremarkable piece of bone has given an elusive carnivore a name. The findings, published in Royal Society Open Science, also fill a gap in the story of how megaraptorans, a group whose most intimidating equipment was attached to its arms, spread across the planet.
A Long-Clawed Hunter, Reconstructed from Its Relatives
Megaraptorans were agile, two-legged hunters with relatively slender heads, powerful arms and curved claws. Their anatomy points to a strategy built around grabbing prey, quite unlike the jaw-driven approach of their close relative Tyrannosaurus rex.
Invictibellatrix was among the group’s earliest and smallest known members, though small is relative for a meat-eater. Lead author Cassitus Morrison explained that, judging from its closest relatives, the animal would have been three to four meters (10 to 13 feet) long and just over a meter and a half (5 feet) tall, roughly human height. He added that:
“It would likely have had feathers, and its claws might have been about 10cm to 20cm [4 to 8 inches] long. It would have eaten small dinosaurs, lizards, and mammals — occupying a similar role in the food chain to the hyena today.”
A caveat matters here: these details are reconstructions drawn from related dinosaurs, not features preserved in the fossil itself. The skull fragment did not come with a matching set of claws. The name, meaning “unconquered female warrior,” anticipates the ecological dominance some later megaraptorans would achieve.
From Museum Drawer to New Species
The fossil was originally recovered along the Isle of Wight’s southwest coast by amateur paleontologist Reginald Walter Hooley. After his death, the Natural History Museum acquired it in 1924, together with more than 1,000 of his other specimens.
To work out what the bone belonged to, the study compared it with skulls and braincases from several groups of meat-eating dinosaurs, tyrannosaurs and spinosaurs among them. The fragment showed an unusual combination of features, including an oval opening where the spinal cord entered the skull and an hourglass-shaped crest.
These supported naming a previously unknown species, and computer analyses comparing its traits with those of other dinosaurs repeatedly placed it among megaraptorans. Morrison called it a real mystery that the fossil was overlooked for so long. According to his press release comments:
“It is a real mystery that this fossil was overlooked for so long, sitting in a drawer for nearly 100 years. Lots of bones are found on the Isle of Wight — who knows what else is waiting to be discovered.”
Why Europe Was the Missing Link?
Researchers have proposed that megaraptorans originated in Asia and traveled through Europe toward Gondwana, the southern landmass. Until now, the European stretch of that proposed journey had no megaraptoran fossil to support it.
Co-author Charlie Scherer said the new species is the first proof that megaraptorans were present in Europe and that they reached Gondwana this way rather than island-hopping further south.
Models incorporating fossils, evolutionary relationships, geography and climate suggested the group was widespread during the Early Cretaceous. Later, megaraptorans apparently disappeared from the northern landmass of Laurasia while becoming dominant predators in the south, with some developing claws around 14 inches long.
One skull fragment cannot document every step of that journey. Still, it places these mysterious hunters where scientists had long expected to find them, and nobody needed to dig a new hole to do it.
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