ARGENTINA: FOSSILS DISCOVERED ARE NEW OF TYPE OF SPHENODONTIAN AN ANCIENT FAMILY OF PRIMITIVE REPTILES

Record ID: 448955

  • Title: ARGENTINA: FOSSILS DISCOVERED ARE NEW OF TYPE OF SPHENODONTIAN AN ANCIENT FAMILY OF PRIMITIVE REPTILES
  • Date: 8th October 2003
  • Summary: (L!2) BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA (OCTOBER 8, 2003) (REUTERS-ACCESS ALL) 1. DINOSAUR SKELETONS IN MUSEUM 2. DINOSAUR SKELETONS AND REPRODUCTION OF THE SPHENODONTIA 3. VARIOUS OF SEBASTIAN APESTEGUIA, PALAEONTOLOGIST FROM THE NATURAL SCIENCE MUSEUM OF BUENOS AIRES DEMONSTRATING THE MANDIBLE OF A SPHENODONTIA 4. (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) SEBASTIAN APESTEGUIA, PALAEONTOLOGIST, SAYING: "The only discoveries of these animals were from earlier times, and then they disappeared from the fossil registry up until this present day. There is only one survivor in New Zealand, it is almost extinct. So we found this in the middle of this island, 120 million years, this gives us a lot of information about the animals who lived with the dinosaurs. These were not dinosaurs, these are lizards." 5. VARIOUS OF SEBASTIAN APESTEGUIA, SHOWING A STONE WITH FOSSILS 6. APESTEGUIA AND FERNANDO NOVAS WALKING AROUND THE MUSEUM. 7. (SOUNDBITE) (FERNANDO NOVAS) HEAD OF THE LABORATORY IN THE NATURAL SCIENCE MUSEUM, SAYING: "Now we have the concrete evidence and we can now say not only that they existed, but that there were a lot of them, this is something that no once would have imagined. This permits us to tell the history quite differently than how it had been previously, including in textbooks for palaeontologists." 8. VARIOUS OF DINOSAUR SKELETONS IN THE MUSEUM. Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 23rd October 2003 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA
  • Country: Argentina
  • Reuters ID: LVADUJLVIOLTTGU2WZEZ64CB1V31
  • Story Text: The fossils discovered in Argentina are of a new type
    of sphenodontian, an ancient family of primitive reptiles that
    roamed the Earth at the time of the dinosaurs and disappeared
    about 110 million years ago.

    The remains uncovered in a quarry in Patagonia are about
    90 million years old and could explain how their only living
    relative, the tuatara, managed to survive.

    "Now we have the concrete evidence and we can now say not
    only that they existed, but that there were a lot of them,
    this is something that no once would have imagined," said
    Fernando Novas, from the Museum of Natural Sciences in Buenos
    Aires. "This permits us to tell the history quite differently
    than how it had been previously, including in textbooks for
    palaeontologists."
    The tuatara, which is only found in New Zealand, is the
    last remaining Sphenodontia and because it has not changed
    much from its ancestors it is called a living fossil.

    The remains found in Patagonia are from a creature about a
    metre (yard) long and belong to the largest sphenodontian
    discovered so far. They show that the creatures survived
    longer in Gondwana, an ancient super-continent that
    incorporated South America, Africa, India, Australia and
    Antarctica, than in other northern areas.


  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register