It was the early 1980s on the Hastings family's ranch in Uruguay. The land, called El Baron Ranch, is made up of nearly 3,000 acres of soft rolling hills, meandering streams, and indigenous trees, where today, the family raises free-range cattle.
At the time, the family was building a 1,600-foot dam on the land to irrigate rice. And in order to construct the dam, workers sliced off part of a hill. Hidden within the hill, in an outcrop of rock, was a group of fossils nearly 280 million years in the making. The animal found inside the outcrop averaged about a meter (about 3 feet) in length with a long snout and tail and thin rows of delicate teeth. The family had found a Mesosaur.
(Credit:Graciela Piñeiro)
Outcrop in El Baron Ranch
