A sauropod dinosaur was named a new species around 80 years after it was first discovered in a remote Colombian mountain range, thanks to the 2016 Peace Agreement, which put an end to half a century of civil war.
Around 175 million years ago, a 12-metre long sauropod walked northern Colombia.
Scientists are attributing the discovery of this new species of herbivorous dinosaur to the improved security situation in Colombia since the signing of the 2016 peace deal.
Two years after the signing of the agreement, a group of researchers from the Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla, and the University of Michigan, US, found it safe to visit the Serranía del Perijá, and gather new data.
The scientists returned to the place where a fossil of a dinosaur dorsal spine vertebra was found by a geologist working for an oil company in 1943. At the time no one knew that it was part of a brand-new species. After the find, the fossil was taken, along with some sediment samples, to the US and given to the University of California scientific collection at Berkeley.
"Without the security conditions provided in the area today, it would have been difficult to return to the field. This is due to the peace agreement," Aldo Rincón Burbano, professor at the Department of Physics and Geosciences at the Universidad del Norte in Barranquilla and one of the research leaders in Colombia, told UN News.
Former FARC-EP fighters provided logistical services, lodging, and guides for the researchers, as they tried to locate the site where the fossil had been unearthed some 80 years earlier.
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"We spent almost a year in the process, writing and searching, and although we didn't find any new fossils, we managed to get to the site and find the same sediment collected alongside the vertebra in 1943," said Rincón. "By studying the sediment, we were able to conclude that the vertebra was from a new genus and a new species."
They named the species Perijasaurus lapaz – the first part after the place where it was found and the second as a tribute to the peace agreement.
The dinosaur is similar to other sauropods of this period found in Asia, North Africa, and southern Patagonia, which were smaller than the later dinosaurs belonging to this group.
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