A team of international researchers have discovered a new species of meat-eating dinosaur in the northwestern corner of China. The dinosaur, Aorun zhaoi, was only a few feet in length and lived during the Late Jurassic Period nearly 161 million years ago, according to the team.
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The find, led by James Clark of George Washington University, was only a partial skeleton, but incuded a near-complete skull (shown in the photo above in comparison to a U.S. quarter) and a mandible. The discovery is of the oldest known Coelurosaur. The species of late-period dinosaurs highly resemble birds and very well may have been completely feathered, according to researchers.
The species was known to prey on lizards, shrew-like mammals and relatives of crocodilians with its set of small, but sharp teeth.
Researchers are still determining if the species was as small as they first concluded or just an undeveloped individual that would later grow much larger.
“We were able to look at microscopic details of Aorun’s bones and they showed that the animal was less than a year old when it died on the banks of a stream,” said Jonah Choiniere, a member of the research team, in a news release.
At first look, the team was actually underwhelmed by the new theropod, the fifth to be discovered in the Xinjiang province, until they unearthed more fosillized remains.
“All that was exposed on the surface was a bit of the leg,” said James Clark in a news release. ”We were pleasantly surprised to find a skull buried in the rock too.”
The findings were published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology.
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