New Species of 'Whiplash Dinosaur' Found in Wyoming

By KM Diaz, | May 03, 2017

The Galeamopus pabsti has massive legs, with high and triangular neck near its head. (YouTube)

The Galeamopus pabsti has massive legs, with high and triangular neck near its head. (YouTube)

Researchers from Portugal and Italy described another new species of "whiplash dinosaur" lived 150 million years ago which was originally found in Wyoming, USA.

The new species named, Galeamopus pabsti, is the dinosaur described by paleontologists from Faculty of Science and Technology, Museum of Lourinhã, and Universidade Nova de Lisboa in Portugal; and the Department of Earth Sciences of the University of Turin, Italy.

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The Jurassic dinosaur first unearthed by a Swiss research team, led by Ben Pabst and Hans-Jakob "Kirby" Siber, in Wyoming, USA in 1995. In addition, this is the new and latest series of discovery by the paleontologists Octávio Mateus and Emanuel Tschopp in 2012 alongside Kaatedocus siberi. The finding was published in the journal PeerJ.

Whiplash dinosaurs are known because of their long whip-like tails. The Galeamopus pabsti is comparable to one of the most famous whiplash dinosaurs, Diplodocus. However, the new species has massive legs, with high and triangular neck near its head. It is also the second recognized species of genus Galeamopus to show a difference on Diplodocus.

The Galeamopus pabsti was named after Ben Pabst. He first discovered the skeleton of the new species and fixed it for mounting at the Sauriermuseum Aathal in Switzerland. This is one of the major attractions in the permanent exhibit.

Whiplash dinosaurs occurred in Europe, Africa, and South America, but North America has the highest diversity of more than 15 species known including Brontosaurus, which is considered to be the most iconic diplodocid.

Researchers are perplexed by this high diversity of whiplash dinosaurs and are resuming their research to know how such diversity could be sustained by the ecosystem in which they existed.


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