Scientists discover skull of new unusual ‘armless’ dinosaur species in Argentina

The best of Voices delivered to your inbox every week - from controversial columns to expert analysis Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter for expert opinion and columns Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Paleontologists have uncovered the skull of an “unusual” dinosaur that could be the close relative of the ancestors of an armless group of dinosaurs that roamed the Earth’s southern hemisphere about 70 million years ago. It has several key characteristics that suggest that is a new species, providing important new information about an area of the world which we don’t know a lot about,” Anjali Goswami, study leader from Natural History Museum, said in a statement. While some preliminary research suggests the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex might have actually used its tiny arms to bring prey in close for a bite, paleontologists behind the new study say many species of abelisaurs had front limbs that were even shorter than those of the T.rex, and “effectively useless.” open image in gallery A Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaur fossil skeleton is displayed in a gallery at Christie’s auction house on September 17, 2020 in New York City Abelisaurid hands, they say, could not grasp prey or objects, forcing the dinosaurs to rely on their powerful heads and jaws to capture prey. Fossils of this clade of dinosaurs have been found in rocks across Africa, South America, Europe as well as India dating to the Late Cretaceous, just before dinosaurs were wiped out 66 million years ago, scientists say.