A team of archaeologists has discovered the fossil remains of a 72-million-year-old tail in a cave in northern Mexico, it has been announced.
The “unique thick wall” of the tail, which was the first found in Mexico, said Francisco Aguilar, director of the country’s National Insтιтute of Anthropology and History.
The team, made up of archaeologists and students from INAH and the National Autonomous University of Mexico, identified the fossil as a hadrosaurid, or duck-billed dinosaur.
The “unique thick wall” of the tail was the first found in Mexico. It is 72 million years old.
The tail, found near the town of General Cepeda in Coahuila state, likely accrued more than half the dinosaur’s length, Aguilar said.
Archaeologists found 50% of the complete tail in just 20 days in the desert, slowly illuminating a rocky sediment covering the dinosaur’s skull bones.
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Stones around the tail were other bonus fossils, including one of the dinosaur’s spikes.
Dinosaur fossils have been found in many parts of the state of Coahuila, as well as other northern states.
He noted that during the last 40 million years of the Cretaceous
