Overview
- Papers in Palaeontology published a Virginia Tech–led study naming a new species, Ptychotherates bucculentus, based on a meat-eating dinosaur from the late Triassic.
- The research centers on a mangled skull first collected in 1982 at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, then digitally reconstructed with CT scans and 3D printing.
- Lead author Simba Srivastava, an undergraduate, determined the animal belongs to Herrerasauria, one of the earliest known groups of carnivorous dinosaurs.
- The skull shows massive cheekbones, a broad braincase, and a likely short, deep snout, features not previously documented in such early dinosaurs.
- Because the fossil appears to come from rocks just before the end-Triassic extinction and no herrerasaurs are known after that, the authors suggest the American Southwest may have been a last refuge, a view that will need further dating and finds to confirm.