Episode 471
Oxalaia
Sun, 2018-Aug-19 01:03 UTC
Length - 2:44
Direct Link
Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of the featured Wikipedia article every day.
The featured article for Sunday, 19 August 2018 is Oxalaia.
Oxalaia (in reference to the African deity Oxalá) is a genus of spinosaurid theropod dinosaur that lived in what is now the Northeast Region of Brazil during the Cenomanian of the Late Cretaceous, sometime between 100.5 to 93.9 million years ago. Its only known fossils were found in 1999 on Cajual Island in the rocks of the Alcântara Formation, which is known for its abundance of fragmentary, isolated fossil specimens. The remains of Oxalaia were described in 2011 by Brazilian palaeontologist Alexander Kellner and colleagues, who assigned the specimens to a new genus containing one species, Oxalaia quilombensis. The species name refers to the Brazilian quilombo settlements. Oxalaia is the eighth officially named theropod species from Brazil and the largest carnivorous dinosaur discovered there. It is closely related to the African genus Spinosaurus.
Although Oxalaia is known only from two partial skull bones, Kellner and colleagues found that its teeth and cranium had a few distinct features not seen in other spinosaurids or theropods, including two replacement teeth in each socket and a very sculptured secondary palate. Oxalaia's habitat was tropical, heavily forested, and surrounded by an arid landscape. This environment had a large variety of lifeforms also present in Middle-Cretaceous North Africa, due to the connection of South America and Africa as parts of the supercontinent Gondwana. As a spinosaurid, the traits of Oxalaia's skull and dentition indicate a largely piscivorous (fish eating) lifestyle similar to that of modern crocodilians. Fossil evidence suggests spinosaurids also occasionally preyed on other animals such as small dinosaurs and pterosaurs.
This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 01:03 UTC on Sunday, 19 August 2018.
For the full current version of the article, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxalaia.
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This has been Salli. Thank you for listening to featured Wiki of the Day.
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