A team of paleontologists from the Federal University of Santa Maria in Brazil have discovered a dinosaur fossil dating back about 200 million years, and it is in a very good state of preservation. According to the team, the fossil dates back to the Triassic era, that is, in the period from 250 to 200 million years BC, before the Jurassic era. The team was able to remove and transfer the mass of rocks containing the fossilized skeleton to the research center. According to the first observations of this famous center, the fossil belongs to a sample of the herrerasaurid family, which are long-tailed carnivorous animals that walked on two feet and inhabited the lands currently located in Argentina and Brazil. Rodrigo Tim Muller, who is responsible for the excavations, said: "It is not only one of the oldest dinosaur fossils in the world, but it is also in a very good state of preservation, and it would provide us with a lot of information about the anatomy of these "dinosaurs," indicating that it is likely t o be the second most abundant fossil. "The most complete family known so far in the herrerasaurid family." He added: "There will be a need to conduct a lot of analyzes so that we can determine whether the excavated fossil belongs to the same species that was discovered next May." The team pointed out that the heavy rains that caused historic floods in southern Brazil, and the exceptional sedimentation, played a partially beneficial role, by accelerating erosion, thus revealing the fossil belonging to the herrerasaurian family, which could not have been discovered until a long time later in normal conditions. Source: Qatar News Agency