This reconstruction shows that the antiosaurus takes down a vegetarian moscognathas.
Alex Bernardini (SimplexPaleo)
Dinosaurs get all the glory, but there were some strange animals roaming the earth before dinosaurs came along. One of these animals, the large-rooted antiosaurus, was thought to be sluggish, but new research shows that it is potentially a sinful and effective predator.
Anteosaurus was described as a “ferocious predator-killer” in a statement on Wednesday by the Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, South Africa.
The hippopotamus-sized antiosaurus was a dinosaurian, described by the university as a “mammal-like reptile.” They thrive in Africa about 260 million years ago, but the first dinosaurs died 30 million years ago.
Previous research in antiosaurus suggests that the animal was so heavy and slow that it had to stay in the water. A team from the University of Witt created a 3D reconstruction of the antiosaurus skull and found some surprising new data about its brain, body parts and potential hunting skills on the ground. It was not slow.
Here is how the antiosaurus skull compares to the human skull.
Wits University
Paleontologist Ashley Krueger said, “In the complete reconstruction of the antiosaurus skull to date, we have found that overall, the nervous system of the antiosaurus, considered faster and faster, was the opposite of what was previously thought.”
Kruger was co-author of a paper on the online published Anteosuarus published last month in the journal Anta Paleontologica Polonica. Studies have shown how computer restructuring can change what we know about long-extinct animals.
Co-author Julian Benoit said, “Even though the antiosaurus lived 200 million years before the famous dinosaur Tyrannosaurus Rex, the antiosaurus was certainly not an ‘ancient’ animal, and it was nothing less than a prehistoric killing machine.”
