Unveiling Prehistoric Giants: 220-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Fossils and Earth’s Earliest Tusker Dicynodont Discovered in Argentina

Scientists Unearth 220 Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Fossils in Argentina, Weird’ turtle-like dicynodonts ‘were the first animals to have tusks’

A site containing the 220-million-year-old fossilised remains of nearly a dozen dinosaurs has been discovered in western Argentina, researchers said Wednesday.

The Dicynodont as Ground Sloth Hypothesis — Tetrapod Zoology

“There are almost ten different individuals, it’s a mass of bones, there’s practically no sediment,” said Argentinian paleontologist Ricardo Martinez.

A Harvard University study traced the first tusks all the way back to dicynodonts (pictured) and shed light on the evolution of protruding teeth by first defining what makes a tusk a tusk

“It’s very impressive.”

According to Martinez, of the University of San Juan, the fossils are approximately 220 million years old, belonging to “an era of which we know little”.

“This discovery is doubly important because there are at least seven or eight individuals of dicynodonts, the ancestors of mammals, the size of an ox,” he said.

He said there were also remains of archosaurs, reptiles that could be the ancestors of great crocodiles “that we do not know about yet”.

A dicynodont skull still in the ground that is broken to reveal the roots of their tusks/teeth (the white circular structures)

The find was discovered in September last year in San Juan province, about 1,100 kilometres (680 miles) west of Buenos Aires.

The site is between one and two metres (yards) in diameter and about the same depth, leading scientists to speculate it was a former drinking hole at a time of great drought, and the creatures died of weakness at the spot.

Dicynodontia - Wikipedia

Argentina has been a rich source of fossils from the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous eras over the years — most, of creatures not found in the northern hemisphere. — AFP