{"id":332945,"date":"2020-02-19T16:53:52","date_gmt":"2020-02-19T19:53:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/?p=332945"},"modified":"2020-02-19T16:53:52","modified_gmt":"2020-02-19T19:53:52","slug":"the-predator-with-voracious-jaws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/the-predator-with-voracious-jaws\/","title":{"rendered":"The predator with voracious jaws"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A fossil discovered in Rio Grande do Sul is the best-preserved representative of the herrerasauridae, one of the first strains of carnivorous dinosaur. The new biped <em>Gnathovorax cabreirai<\/em> has been described based on an individual found in 2014 in the municipality of S\u00e3o Jo\u00e3o do Pol\u00easine, 50 kilometers from Santa Maria, in the center of the state (<em>PeerJ<\/em>, November 8). The area is rich in paleontological sites with dinosaurs and other reptiles from the Upper Triassic, between 237 and 201 million years ago. <em>Gnathovorax<\/em> means &#8220;jaws inclined to devour,&#8221; alluding to the animal&#8217;s predatory nature, and <em>cabreirai<\/em> is a reference to paleontologist S\u00e9rgio Cabreira, who discovered the fossil. An almost complete skeleton of the dinosaur, which is believed to have reached up to 3 meters in length from head to tail, was found in a 2-ton block of rock. The geological age of the rock indicates that <em>G. cabreirai<\/em> lived just over 230 million years ago, at about the same time as <em>Staurikosaurus pricei<\/em>, the first dinosaur discovered in Brazil, in 1936. Found in Santa Maria, <em>S. pricei <\/em>also belonged to the herrerasasuridae, a relatively rare group of dinosaurs<em>. &#8220;<\/em>Even in Argentina, where a greater number of herrerasasuridae specimens have been found, none is as complete and well preserved as <em>G. cabreirai<\/em>,&#8221; says paleontologist Rodrigo M\u00fcller, from the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM). He was one of the authors of the scientific article that described the new species, together with colleagues from UFSM and paleontologist Max Langer from the University of S\u00e3o Paulo (USP). The scientists were able to recreate a large part of the dinosaur&#8217;s brain using computed tomography.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_332950\" style=\"max-width: 1150px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/008-011_Notas_286-5-1140.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-332950 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/008-011_Notas_286-5-1140.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1140\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/008-011_Notas_286-5-1140.jpg 1140w, https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/008-011_Notas_286-5-1140-250x175.jpg 250w, https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/008-011_Notas_286-5-1140-700x491.jpg 700w, https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/008-011_Notas_286-5-1140-120x84.jpg 120w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1140px) 100vw, 1140px\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span class=\"media-credits-inline\">Rodrigo M\u00fcller \/ UFSM<\/span><\/a> Rock where the almost complete fossil of <em>Gnathovorax cabreirai<\/em> was found, whose appearance was reconstructed in the illustration<span class=\"media-credits\">Rodrigo M\u00fcller \/ UFSM<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A fossil discovered in Rio Grande do Sul is the best-preserved representative of the herrerasauridae, one of the first strains of carnivorous dinosaur","protected":false},"author":475,"featured_media":332946,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1651],"tags":[255],"coauthors":[785],"class_list":["post-332945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-notes","tag-paleontology"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/475"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332945"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":332954,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332945\/revisions\/332954"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332945"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=332945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}