Paleontologists have discovered the remains of a small spiny dinosaur in South America. Scientists believe the new species could be part of a lineage of armored dinosaurs previously unknown to science, Science Alert reports..

Newly discovered species Jakapil kaniukura looks like a primitive relative of armored dinosaurs like ankylosaurs or stegosaurs. But he lived on Earth during the Cretaceous period, about 97-94 million years ago..

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According to the researchers, this means that a whole lineage of armored dinosaurs lived in the southern hemisphere, which has so far gone unnoticed..

The name Jakapil comes from the word meaning " Kaniukura comes from the Mapudungun indigenous language.

Weighed J. kaniukura is about as long as a domestic cat, its length was about 1.5 meters. From the neck to the tail, the body of the animal was covered with protective spikes.. The dinosaur was a herbivore, and its teeth were shaped like leaves, like a stegosaurus..

The remains of a new species were found in the north of Patagonia. According to scientists, the dinosaur walked upright and had a beak capable of strong bites.. The researchers believe that the animal could eat tough woody vegetation..

The new species, like stegosaurs and ankylosaurs, belonged to a group of armored dinosaurs called thyreophores.. Most of the known thyreophores lived in the Northern Hemisphere, their remains are found mainly in Jurassic rocks from North America and Europe from about 201 million years ago to 163 million years ago..

According to scientists, their discovery shows that early thyreophores had a much wider range of habitats than previously thought.. It is also surprising that this thyrophoran lineage survived until the late Cretaceous, since in the Northern Hemisphere representatives of this group became extinct by the middle of the Jurassic..

Previously, paleontologists discovered the fossil remains of a flying reptile that lived on Earth 86 million years ago.. They testify that in those distant times, “flying dragons” coexisted on our planet with dinosaurs..