The researchers have found the fossil of a previously unknown dinosaur species named Vespersaurus paranaensis, that lived 90 million years ago in the Cruzeiro do Oeste municipality of Parana state in southern Brazil.
The fossil remains of the Vespersaurus paranaensis is over a metre and a half in length. It was a desert-based carnivorous dinosaur that used claws to capture small prey in the region.
The Vespersaurus was a theropod, a group of two-footed, meat-eating dinosaurs that included the better known Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor.
The northeastern region of Parana was once a desert and the dinosaur’s remains suggest that the Vespersaurus was well adapted to that type of climate.
