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In Brazil's pampas, a Triassic Park once flourished
BY JORDI MIRO (AFP) 3 HOURS AGO
Millions of years before the arrival of the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex, another fearsome dinosaur -- the Gnathovorax -- roamed what is now southern Brazil, ripping apart its prey with sharp teeth.
Measuring nearly 10 feet (three meters) long, it was the biggest dinosaur of its time, and also the most ferocious -- placing it at the top of the food chain, as T.rex once was.
Basically, the Gnathovorax cabreirai was the king of Triassic Park, if you will, as the dominant creature of the pre-Jurassic period that began roughly 250 million years ago.
"In the Triassic ecosystem, it held a place similar to what lions have today," says Rodrigo Temp Muller, a 26-year-old paleontologist at the Federal University of Santa Maria.
Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/world/in-brazil-s-pampas-a-triassic-park-once-flourished/article/563920#ixzz68cXsgiQs
Images of the Pampas, which you can see was stripped of trees for agriculture:
https://tinyurl.com/vnexht4
