Scientists studying Chile’s parched Atacama desert, the world’s driest, have discovered the remains of a previously unknown species of dinosaur that millions of years ago lived among lush greenery in what is now a moonscape of rock and sand. 

• A team led by Chilean geologist Carlos Arévalo unearthed the remains of Arackar licanantay, which means “Atacama bones” in the Kunza language, 75 kilometers south of the desert city of Copiapó.  
• The so-called titanosaur had a small head and long neck and tail, as well as an unusually flat back compared with others like it. 

• Recent paleontological studies suggest Arackar lived amid flowering plants, ferns and palm trees during the Cretaceous period 66-80 million years ago.  
• Parts of the Atacama today, by contrast, have gone without rain for one hundred years and support little plant or animal life. 
• The discovery of a titanosaur on the west side of South America’s Andes Mountains is rare, though several species have been found in Argentina and Brazil, further east. 
• Arackar also appears smaller in size compared with some other titanosaurs.  
• The Argentinosaurus, discovered on the east side of the Andes in neighbouring Argentina, was more than four times as long, scientists say. 

Source: The Hindu