An extraordinary discovery has been made by a farmer in Argentina who was rosy enough to stumble across the fossil remains of fourenormous Glyptodonfossils in the Vallimanca stream transmission channel while transporting cattle . Apostfrom the Institute of Archaeological and Palaeontological Investigations of the Pampa Quaternary ( Incuapa - Conicet ) details how the specimen were revealed from the earth following a drought in the area that has sapped the stream , forcing the top of a racing shell into the open .
Farmer Juan de Dios Sota was remove his cattle to graze when he blemish the unusual protrusion and did n’t make out it to be the carcass of a cavalry or cow , which are common in the region . Upon spotting the shell , the James Leonard Farmer reach out to the local authorities and a team of palaeontologists was sent out to convalesce the specimens and evaluate the four Glyptodons who it appears died together .
The unusual discovery will hopefully appropriate researchers to clarify if this species exhibitedsexual dimorphismas the group is believed to be two adults and two juveniles of differing sexes . “ These kind of cases , in which several mortal together who die in the same circumstances , are really olympian and undoubtedly will give us a fate of information about these enigmatic animals and will let us to test several hypotheses that we have been driving in recent old age , ” said palaeontologist on - site Ricardo Bonini , in astatement .
Regarding the sexual dimorphism , " It ’s not clear on how we are go to evaluate it in these dodo but the objective is to observe alteration in the size of the bones because we have four glyptodonts together , " Pablo Messineo , archeologist , professor , and researcher at CONICET and INCUAPA , told IFLScience . " peradventure the clappers of the pelvis and ventral shell can show some differences that we should study . "
Glyptodons roamed in South America for more than 20 million class , and its thought they may have finally gone extinct at the hand of former man , who may have used the shell of the dead animals as shelter during bad weather . These enormous , heavily armoured congeneric of armadillos are a part of the mammalian superorder Xenarthra . Like other Xenarthrans , they were herbivorous animals and as such their anatomy was adapted for protection .
They had immensely elusive , tortoise - similar shells that protected their body , and bony deposits on the cutis called osteoderms to protect the parts that protruded from their armor . Despite being thesize of modern cars , their armory of defense mechanisms imply they were preyed upon and their most likely aggressor was a chemical group jazz as the Terror Birds , a family of flightless carnivorous razz . Glyptodons wereconfirmed as relativesto New - day armadillos , whose name in Spanish means “ little armored one ” , by desoxyribonucleic acid sequencing carried out in 2016 .
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