They discovered footprints of a prehistoric bird on the shores of Rio Negro

They found footprints of a prehistoric bird on the shores of Rio Negro. The discovery was in charge of a group of environmental guards who located the marks of almost 40 centimeters. According to experts, it is an animal that lived eight million years ago and was known as “Rionegrina pozosaladensis”. The bird was located in the Punta Bermeja, Caleta de los Loros and Pozo Salado Natural Protected Areas, on the Atlantic coast of Río Negro.” The analysis of the footprints confirmed that they are eight million years ago, belonging to the Late Miocene, a time when dinosaurs were extinct,” says the official information. Before the discovery, an investigation was carried out that determined, according to comparison with other birds, that it weighed about 55 kilograms. In addition, they explained that it is an animal little known in the world and that “it has some degree of comparison with those of carnivorous dinosaurs of the Early Cretaceous (between 145 and 100 million years old), which belong to the group of deinonychosaurs and used one of the claws of the foot to dominate their prey.” In the mud of the coast of one of these lakes were recorded footprints of almost 40 cm long of a bipedal animal that show a support in two toes, the middle finger and the lateral (very similar to the current African ostriches),” says the provincial government report. During the investigation it was found that the footprints had a large central finger and a lateral one that would be the main support. While at the same time it has a very reduced inner finger and almost did not support the heel. These signs indicate that the bird was adapted for running. 

Original source in Spanish