Fossils are regularly found in Moroccan phosphate mines. Particularly in the basin of Ouled Abdoun located in the province of Khouribga, 160 km south of Casablanca, where dozens of species of prehistoric animals have been exhumed for three decades. We found there creodonts (ancestors of our felids), proboscideans (ancestors of our elephants), condylarths (species that gave rise to both horses and camels) but also hyracoids (kinds of large marmots)… This immense bestiary brought to light, year after year, is enriched today with two new species discovered this summer by an international team of paleontologists, in older geological strata.
In an article, published August 22 in the journal Cretaceous Research, Nour-Eddine Jalil of the Natural History Museum (France), Nicholas R. Longrich of the University of Bath (UK), Erik Isasmendi and Xabier Pereda- Suberbiola of the University of the Basque Country (Spain) thus indicated that they had identified on the spot the fossils of two new types of large prehistoric predators who lived there in the Cretaceous: around 66 million years ago. Cousins ??of the T-Rex, these dinosaurs are part of the abelisaurid family. They are theropods, that is to say bipedal predators that evolved mainly on the ground of Gondwana, a supercontinent comprising, before the drift of the tectonic plates, the regions corresponding today to South America, the Africa, India, Antarctica and Australia.
If the discovery of these two dinosaurs surprised researchers, it is because the region was, at the time, bordered by a tropical sea. An environment where the presence of such cousins ??of the Tyrannosaurus is not common. Traditionally, there are fossils of large marine reptiles (plesiosaurs and mosasaurs). Paleontologists also note that the fossils recently unearthed have many points in common with those of Quilmesaurus and Aucasaurus, previously found in South America. But, as the scientists note in their publication, “The end of the Cretaceous saw the evolution of endemic species on different landmasses, driven by the fragmentation of the continents. A phenomenon that has accelerated the evolution of Mesozoic ecosystems”.
