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About Valle de la Luna:
Most famous fossil sites date from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, and provide a geological snapshot of thriving dinosaur populations. What makes Argentina's Valle de la Luna special is that its sediments date from the end of the Triassic period, when true dinosaurs had only recently begun to evolve. The most famous skeleton found here is of the early dinosaur Herrerasaurus, which, at a mere 15 feet long, may have been the top predator of its day. This site has also yielded fossils of the archosaurs that preceded the dinosaurs, as well as the primitive reptile Lagosuchus, which some experts believe may have given rise to the entire dinosaur line.
In 1993, paleontologist Paul Sereno made a startling discovery at Valle de la Luna: the skeleton of a three-foot-long, dinosaur-like creature that he named Eoraptor (Greek for "dawn hunter"). With its bipedal gait, five-fingered hands, serrated teeth, and hollow bones in its legs and arms, Eoraptor may well have been the first true dinosaur, or at any rate the closest ancestor yet found of all the theropods (the two-legged, predatory dinosaurs that later ranged in size and behavior from Velociraptor to T. Rex).
By the way, unlike the case with most other fossil sites, the bones found at Valle de la Luna tend to be rare, scattered and unarticulated, which makes the task of piecing together the responsible dinosaurs (or archosaurs) all the more challenging!
