00:03These are the fossils recently found in Brazil, and while they're not that large or impressive as far as dinosaur
00:09bones go, their scientific importance is gargantuan.
00:12That's because they belong to what's called Venatoraptor gassini, which isn't a dinosaur at all.
00:17Venatoraptors are actually part of a phylum of creatures that came before the dinosaurs.
00:23They lived on Earth in the late Triassic period, and they're giving scientists a look at what the dinosaurs' ancestors
00:29looked like.
00:30This is Rodrigo Temmuller, a paleontologist with the Santa Maria Federal University in Brazil.
00:36He says that very little is known about this creature, which lived some 230 million years ago, and that this
00:42discovery has finally revealed what their faces likely looked like.
00:45With the paleontologist adding that the degree and morphological variation of these precursors of the dinosaurs and pterosaurs was much
00:52greater than they had imagined.
00:53However, that very morphology is showing a clear connection to the morphology of the pterosaur family specifically.
00:59The creature was only around 3.2 feet long.
01:01However, paleontologists believe it will be key in better understanding prehistoric species and their evolution.
Comments