Chicken From Hell' Was a Fowl-Looking
Dinosaur
Meet the “Chicken from Hell,” a recently identified bird-like dinosaur that roamed the Dakotas with T. rex 66 million years ago.
The beaked dinosaur, Anzu wyliei, is described in the latest issue of the journal PLoS ONE. The dino was tall, measured 11.5 feet long, weighed 500 pounds and had very sharp claws.
Bat' Dino
A dinosaur with bat-like wings once soared through the skies of what is now China.
The Jurassic dinosaur, named Yi qi, has the shortest name ever given to a dino: Yi qi, pronounced "ee chee," means "strange wing." It also appears to be the earliest known flying non-avian dinosaur. At 160 million years old, it is older than the first known birds, such as Archaeopteryx.
"This is the most unexpected discovery I have ever made, even though I have found a few really bizarre dinosaurs in my career," noted paleontologist Xu Xing of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) in Beijing told Discovery News.
The Dragon of Qiijiang
An enormous 50-foot-long dinosaur named "Dragon of Qijiang" was unearthed by construction workers near Qijiang City, China.
The plant-eating dinosaur, Qijianglong guokr, had an unusual body that was half neck. It lived about 160 million years ago and is described in the latest issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
The construction crew that happened upon the dinosaur remarkably managed to unearth the dinosaur with its head still attached to its long, narrow neck.
Sail-Backed Dinosaur
A distinctive new dinosaur with a “sail” on its back has just been unearthed in Spain.
The new plant-eating dino, named Morelladon beltrani, adds to a growing number of medium to large-bodied dinosaurs of a similar kind that have all been found in the region that now comprises parts of Spain and Portugal.
In this case, Morelladon beltrani was discovered in Morella, Spain, according to a paper published in the latest issue of PLOS ONE. The authors mention that “the specimen was found in a body of red clays belonging to the upper Barremian Arcillas de Morella Formation.” It dates to around 125 million years ago.
This T. rex-Like Dino Was Vegetarian
A seven-year-old boy has just discovered a new dinosaur that was closely related to notorious carnivore Tyrannosaurus rex, but surprisingly ate a meat-free diet.
The 145-million-year-old dinosaur, Chilesaurus diegosuarezi, has been nicknamed "The Platypus" because of its extremely bizarre anatomy that was a mish-mash of features associated with huge carnivores, gigantic herbivores and nearly everything in between. It is described in the latest issue of the journal Nature.
The lifestyle of "The Platypus" contrasted with that of its relative, T. rex, which could likely rip the head off of other animals with a single bite.
“Hellboy”
A new eye-catching horned dinosaur nicknamed "Hellboy" sported sharp facial horns and a remarkable shield-like appendage at the top of its head, making this one of the most unusual horned dinosaurs ever known.
Remains of (Regaliceratops peterhewsi) were found in Alberta, Canada, according to a paper published in the latest issue of the journal Current Biology. The newly found species, which lived 70 million years ago, was closely related to the iconic dino Triceratops.
"The specimen comes from a geographic region of Alberta where we have not found horned dinosaurs before, so from the onset we knew it was important," co-author Caleb Brown of the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology said in a press release.
Velociraptor Myth Buster
A new elaborately feathered dinosaur is the largest ever discovered to have a well-preserved set of bird-like wings, according to a new study.
The new 5-foot-long dino, Zhenyuanlong suni, not only provides intriguing clues about the evolution of feathers, but it also busts myths about one of its close cousins, Velociraptor, a dinosaur made famous by the Jurassic Park movies.
“Look at Zhenyuanlong and you’re probably seeing, more or less, what a real Velociraptor would have looked like,” senior author Stephen Brusatte told Discovery News.
“Velociraptor would have been a feisty little feathered poodle from hell, not a drab scaly reptilian monster like in the Jurassic Park films,” added Brusatte, who is a paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh’s School of GeoSciences. He co-authored the study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, with paleontologist Junchang Lüof of the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences.
The scientists came to their conclusions after studying the near-complete and exceptionally well-preserved skeleton for Z. suni, which lived around 125 million years ago in what is now the Liaoning Province of northeastern China. Like Velociraptor, it was a dromaeosaurid -- fast-running, feathered, sickled-clawed dinosaurs that were close relatives of birds.
Z. suni weighed around 25 pounds and, most strikingly, had short, 14-inch-long arms covered with long feathers that looked like quill pens. Today’s eagles and vultures sport a similar type of feather.
This opens up a big question: Could non-avian dinosaurs fly?
Brusatte, Lü and other experts doubt that relatively hefty Z. suni could have flapped itself off the ground.
“Besides the fact that it lacked the large flight muscles and some shoulder adaptations that allow birds to fly, it was simply too heavy,” Alex Dececchi, a researcher at the University of South Dakota, told Discovery News.
Dececchi said it's suspected at least one other non-avian dinosaur, Microraptor, could fly, because it had large wings with feathers that seem to have been suitable for flight.
Z. suni’s feathers, on the other hand, and those of the earliest known feathered dinosaurs, probably were more for form instead of function.
“The first feathers are seen in primitive dinosaurs that clearly lived on the ground and were too big to fly,” Brusatte explained. As for the feathers of Z. suni, “They may have evolved as display structures, gaudy ornaments used to attract mates or to intimidate rivals. Just think about what a peacock does with its tail feathers; it sure isn’t flying with them.”
Michael Habib, an assistant professor at the University of Southern California and a research associate at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, agrees the newly identified dinosaur probably couldn't fly. He did, however, tell Discovery News, “Broad wings with short, relatively weak forelimb bones can still be used to assist with leaping, turning and dropping from otherwise dangerous heights.”
However Z. suni’s feathered wings were used, Habib said that they help to confirm that the evolution of dinosaur/bird wings “was not necessarily tightly coupled to the evolution of flight throughout time. Wings, anatomically speaking, might just be something that many dinosaurs grew as a result of developmental constraints.”
Both Habib and Brusatte said that still more possibilities exist for the purpose of the short-armed new dinosaur’s feathers. Perhaps only younger, less weighty Z. suni individuals could fly before losing the ability as adults. The dinosaur also could have had ancestors that flew, but then lost the ability over evolutionary time. Yet another possibility is that the feathers might have helped to brood the dino’s eggs.
While the precise answer remains a mystery for now, Brusatte said it's no mystery that Velociraptor would have resembled Z. suni.
The "Lost Continent" Dinosaur
During the Late Cretaceous, 66–100 million years ago, North America was split into two continents by a shallow sea called the Western Interior Seaway. Remains of dinosaurs living in the western continent, known as Laramidia, are common, but few such fossils have been found from the eastern ,“lost continent” of Appalachia.
Discovery this year of a rare dino fossil from the lost region therefore made headlines. Nick Longrich, of the University of Bath, studied the fossil and identified it as coming from a ceratopsian dinosaur. These were horned, plant-eating dinos that lived during the Cretaceous.
Longrich said: "Just as many animals and plants found in Australia today are quite different to those found in other parts of the world, it seems that animals in the eastern part of North America in the Late Cretaceous period evolved in a completely different way to those found in the western part of what is now North America, due to a long period of isolation.”
"This adds to the theory," he continued, "that these two land masses were separated by a stretch of water, stopping animals from moving between them, causing the animals in Appalachia to evolve in a completely different direction, resulting in some pretty weird looking dinosaurs.”
New 'Wendy' Dino Had Curls and Frills
A new species of dinosaurs named “Wendy’s horned-face,” was recently unearthed in southern Alberta, Canada. The dinosaur, whose scientific name is Wendiceratops pinhornensis, had elaborate horns and head ornamentation, shedding light on the evolution of such features in the Triceratops family, of which the new dino is a member.
“Wendiceratops helps us understand the early evolution of skull ornamentation in an iconic group of dinosaurs characterized by their horned faces,” explained co-author David Evans in a press release.
Superduck
“Superduck,” another dino excavated in 2015, was 5 tons of fun for members of the opposite sex, especially given its mate-attracting head crest. It serves as a missing link between two other known duck-billed dinosaur species: one with a huge head crest and another that had none at all.
“It is a perfect example of evolution within a single lineage of dinosaurs over millions of years,” Elizabeth Freedman Fowler, of the Museum of the Rockies and Montana State University, told Discovery News.
She and her colleagues studied the dinosaur’s remains and believe its head ornamentation would have been used for visual signals, letting members of its own species know whether or not the individual was of a mature age and ready to mate.
“On a crowded floodplain, you want to make sure you stay with the right (dinosaur) herd,” Freedman Fowler explained. “The crests may have also helped them attract mates.”
“Just like with modern birds that have big colorful feathers and dances to show how strong and healthy they are," she continued, "dinosaur crests aren’t essential for the animal’s life, so by spending energy growing a big, flashy crest, the animal is advertising that it’s doing really well in life, and has really good genes. This attracts mates.”
Dinosaur
Meet the “Chicken from Hell,” a recently identified bird-like dinosaur that roamed the Dakotas with T. rex 66 million years ago.
The beaked dinosaur, Anzu wyliei, is described in the latest issue of the journal PLoS ONE. The dino was tall, measured 11.5 feet long, weighed 500 pounds and had very sharp claws.
A dinosaur with bat-like wings once soared through the skies of what is now China.
The Jurassic dinosaur, named Yi qi, has the shortest name ever given to a dino: Yi qi, pronounced "ee chee," means "strange wing." It also appears to be the earliest known flying non-avian dinosaur. At 160 million years old, it is older than the first known birds, such as Archaeopteryx.
"This is the most unexpected discovery I have ever made, even though I have found a few really bizarre dinosaurs in my career," noted paleontologist Xu Xing of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) in Beijing told Discovery News.
The Dragon of Qiijiang
An enormous 50-foot-long dinosaur named "Dragon of Qijiang" was unearthed by construction workers near Qijiang City, China.
The plant-eating dinosaur, Qijianglong guokr, had an unusual body that was half neck. It lived about 160 million years ago and is described in the latest issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
The construction crew that happened upon the dinosaur remarkably managed to unearth the dinosaur with its head still attached to its long, narrow neck.
Sail-Backed Dinosaur
A distinctive new dinosaur with a “sail” on its back has just been unearthed in Spain.
The new plant-eating dino, named Morelladon beltrani, adds to a growing number of medium to large-bodied dinosaurs of a similar kind that have all been found in the region that now comprises parts of Spain and Portugal.
In this case, Morelladon beltrani was discovered in Morella, Spain, according to a paper published in the latest issue of PLOS ONE. The authors mention that “the specimen was found in a body of red clays belonging to the upper Barremian Arcillas de Morella Formation.” It dates to around 125 million years ago.
This T. rex-Like Dino Was Vegetarian
A seven-year-old boy has just discovered a new dinosaur that was closely related to notorious carnivore Tyrannosaurus rex, but surprisingly ate a meat-free diet.
The 145-million-year-old dinosaur, Chilesaurus diegosuarezi, has been nicknamed "The Platypus" because of its extremely bizarre anatomy that was a mish-mash of features associated with huge carnivores, gigantic herbivores and nearly everything in between. It is described in the latest issue of the journal Nature.
The lifestyle of "The Platypus" contrasted with that of its relative, T. rex, which could likely rip the head off of other animals with a single bite.
“Hellboy”
A new eye-catching horned dinosaur nicknamed "Hellboy" sported sharp facial horns and a remarkable shield-like appendage at the top of its head, making this one of the most unusual horned dinosaurs ever known.
Remains of (Regaliceratops peterhewsi) were found in Alberta, Canada, according to a paper published in the latest issue of the journal Current Biology. The newly found species, which lived 70 million years ago, was closely related to the iconic dino Triceratops.
"The specimen comes from a geographic region of Alberta where we have not found horned dinosaurs before, so from the onset we knew it was important," co-author Caleb Brown of the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology said in a press release.
Velociraptor Myth Buster
A new elaborately feathered dinosaur is the largest ever discovered to have a well-preserved set of bird-like wings, according to a new study.
The new 5-foot-long dino, Zhenyuanlong suni, not only provides intriguing clues about the evolution of feathers, but it also busts myths about one of its close cousins, Velociraptor, a dinosaur made famous by the Jurassic Park movies.
“Look at Zhenyuanlong and you’re probably seeing, more or less, what a real Velociraptor would have looked like,” senior author Stephen Brusatte told Discovery News.
“Velociraptor would have been a feisty little feathered poodle from hell, not a drab scaly reptilian monster like in the Jurassic Park films,” added Brusatte, who is a paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh’s School of GeoSciences. He co-authored the study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, with paleontologist Junchang Lüof of the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences.
The scientists came to their conclusions after studying the near-complete and exceptionally well-preserved skeleton for Z. suni, which lived around 125 million years ago in what is now the Liaoning Province of northeastern China. Like Velociraptor, it was a dromaeosaurid -- fast-running, feathered, sickled-clawed dinosaurs that were close relatives of birds.
Z. suni weighed around 25 pounds and, most strikingly, had short, 14-inch-long arms covered with long feathers that looked like quill pens. Today’s eagles and vultures sport a similar type of feather.
This opens up a big question: Could non-avian dinosaurs fly?
Brusatte, Lü and other experts doubt that relatively hefty Z. suni could have flapped itself off the ground.
“Besides the fact that it lacked the large flight muscles and some shoulder adaptations that allow birds to fly, it was simply too heavy,” Alex Dececchi, a researcher at the University of South Dakota, told Discovery News.
Dececchi said it's suspected at least one other non-avian dinosaur, Microraptor, could fly, because it had large wings with feathers that seem to have been suitable for flight.
Z. suni’s feathers, on the other hand, and those of the earliest known feathered dinosaurs, probably were more for form instead of function.
“The first feathers are seen in primitive dinosaurs that clearly lived on the ground and were too big to fly,” Brusatte explained. As for the feathers of Z. suni, “They may have evolved as display structures, gaudy ornaments used to attract mates or to intimidate rivals. Just think about what a peacock does with its tail feathers; it sure isn’t flying with them.”
Michael Habib, an assistant professor at the University of Southern California and a research associate at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, agrees the newly identified dinosaur probably couldn't fly. He did, however, tell Discovery News, “Broad wings with short, relatively weak forelimb bones can still be used to assist with leaping, turning and dropping from otherwise dangerous heights.”
However Z. suni’s feathered wings were used, Habib said that they help to confirm that the evolution of dinosaur/bird wings “was not necessarily tightly coupled to the evolution of flight throughout time. Wings, anatomically speaking, might just be something that many dinosaurs grew as a result of developmental constraints.”
Both Habib and Brusatte said that still more possibilities exist for the purpose of the short-armed new dinosaur’s feathers. Perhaps only younger, less weighty Z. suni individuals could fly before losing the ability as adults. The dinosaur also could have had ancestors that flew, but then lost the ability over evolutionary time. Yet another possibility is that the feathers might have helped to brood the dino’s eggs.
While the precise answer remains a mystery for now, Brusatte said it's no mystery that Velociraptor would have resembled Z. suni.
The "Lost Continent" Dinosaur
During the Late Cretaceous, 66–100 million years ago, North America was split into two continents by a shallow sea called the Western Interior Seaway. Remains of dinosaurs living in the western continent, known as Laramidia, are common, but few such fossils have been found from the eastern ,“lost continent” of Appalachia.
Discovery this year of a rare dino fossil from the lost region therefore made headlines. Nick Longrich, of the University of Bath, studied the fossil and identified it as coming from a ceratopsian dinosaur. These were horned, plant-eating dinos that lived during the Cretaceous.
Longrich said: "Just as many animals and plants found in Australia today are quite different to those found in other parts of the world, it seems that animals in the eastern part of North America in the Late Cretaceous period evolved in a completely different way to those found in the western part of what is now North America, due to a long period of isolation.”
"This adds to the theory," he continued, "that these two land masses were separated by a stretch of water, stopping animals from moving between them, causing the animals in Appalachia to evolve in a completely different direction, resulting in some pretty weird looking dinosaurs.”
New 'Wendy' Dino Had Curls and Frills
A new species of dinosaurs named “Wendy’s horned-face,” was recently unearthed in southern Alberta, Canada. The dinosaur, whose scientific name is Wendiceratops pinhornensis, had elaborate horns and head ornamentation, shedding light on the evolution of such features in the Triceratops family, of which the new dino is a member.
“Wendiceratops helps us understand the early evolution of skull ornamentation in an iconic group of dinosaurs characterized by their horned faces,” explained co-author David Evans in a press release.
Superduck
“Superduck,” another dino excavated in 2015, was 5 tons of fun for members of the opposite sex, especially given its mate-attracting head crest. It serves as a missing link between two other known duck-billed dinosaur species: one with a huge head crest and another that had none at all.
“It is a perfect example of evolution within a single lineage of dinosaurs over millions of years,” Elizabeth Freedman Fowler, of the Museum of the Rockies and Montana State University, told Discovery News.
She and her colleagues studied the dinosaur’s remains and believe its head ornamentation would have been used for visual signals, letting members of its own species know whether or not the individual was of a mature age and ready to mate.
“On a crowded floodplain, you want to make sure you stay with the right (dinosaur) herd,” Freedman Fowler explained. “The crests may have also helped them attract mates.”
“Just like with modern birds that have big colorful feathers and dances to show how strong and healthy they are," she continued, "dinosaur crests aren’t essential for the animal’s life, so by spending energy growing a big, flashy crest, the animal is advertising that it’s doing really well in life, and has really good genes. This attracts mates.”
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