The dinosaur, named Jakapil kaniukura, is said to have been bipedal with a short beak and rows of disc-shaped bony armor along its neck, back and up to its tail. A well-protected species, Jakapil is part of the thyreophoran genus along with other armored dinos such as stegosaurus and ankylosaurus. The discovery was made by paleontologists from the Natural History Foundation Félix de Azara in Argentina. The team uncovered the remains of Jakapil in Río Negro province in northern Patagonia, Science Alert reports. Lead paleontologist Sebastián Apesteguía wrote that Jakapil represents “the first definitive thyreophora species from Argentine Patagonia.” A Jakapil kaniukura holotype Credit: nature.com The researchers wrote in the journal Scientific Reports that Jakapil was an ancient species of thyreophoran, however, the remains found date back to between 97 and 94 million years before the Cretaceous period. The Cretaceous period is also known as the last age of dinosaurs. SEE ALSO: Scientists discover ancient shark swimming in a really strange place This is a surprising result as Apesteguía and his team note in their paper that “these older gatekeeper types seem to have disappeared since the Middle Jurassic”. They also added that they were surprised by an ancient lineage of thyreophores that survived into the Late Cretaceous period in South America. Tweet may have been deleted (opens in new tab) Thanks to this computer reconstruction above by Gabriel Díaz Yantén, a Chilean paleoartist and paleontology student at the National University of Río Negro, you can see what this ancient species might have looked like when it was alive. Apesteguía and his team measured Jakapil to be 5 feet long and weigh between 9 and 15 kilograms—the size of an average house cat. With stegosaurus-like teeth, researchers also believe that Jakapil was also a herbivorous species.
