Newly discovered dinosaur found intact
Source: Xinhua |
March 22, 2010, Monday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
PALEONTOLOGISTS have found an intact and complete skeleton fossil of a previously undiscovered dinosaur species in north China, the team's leading scientist, Xu Xing, said on Saturday.
Named Linheraptor exquisitus, the new species is the latest find in the Dromaeosauridae family of the carnivorous theropod dinosaurs that lived about 80 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous period.
The fossil of the dinosaur was one of the world's most well-preserved specimen of small predator dinosaurs of the period, said Xu, a research fellow with the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology.
About 2.5 meters long and weighing 25 kilograms, the dinosaur would have been a fast and agile predator and, like other dromaeosaurids, possessed large "killing claws."
Xu said the new species documents a transitional stage in dromaeosaurid evolution from ones with long and thin hindlimbs to stronger beasts.
The new dinosaur was found in the rocks of the Wulansuhai Formation in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in the past two years by an international team, which included Xu, Professor Tan Lin from a local paleoanthropology institute and members from China, the United States and Britain.
It represents the fifth dromaeosaurid dinosaur uncovered from the Wulansuhai Formation, famed for preservation of uncrushed, complete skeletons.
Unlike other sites in the country, the fossils there were found in aeolian rocks formed by sandstorms, which the paleontologist believe killed and buried the dinosaurs, resulting in comparatively intact preservation.
The paleontologists warned that if not collected in time, the large amount of fossils uncovered in the region every year might soon be damaged and disappear.
The findings were published inthe peer-reviewed science journal Zootaxa last Friday.
Named Linheraptor exquisitus, the new species is the latest find in the Dromaeosauridae family of the carnivorous theropod dinosaurs that lived about 80 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous period.
The fossil of the dinosaur was one of the world's most well-preserved specimen of small predator dinosaurs of the period, said Xu, a research fellow with the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology.
About 2.5 meters long and weighing 25 kilograms, the dinosaur would have been a fast and agile predator and, like other dromaeosaurids, possessed large "killing claws."
Xu said the new species documents a transitional stage in dromaeosaurid evolution from ones with long and thin hindlimbs to stronger beasts.
The new dinosaur was found in the rocks of the Wulansuhai Formation in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in the past two years by an international team, which included Xu, Professor Tan Lin from a local paleoanthropology institute and members from China, the United States and Britain.
It represents the fifth dromaeosaurid dinosaur uncovered from the Wulansuhai Formation, famed for preservation of uncrushed, complete skeletons.
Unlike other sites in the country, the fossils there were found in aeolian rocks formed by sandstorms, which the paleontologist believe killed and buried the dinosaurs, resulting in comparatively intact preservation.
The paleontologists warned that if not collected in time, the large amount of fossils uncovered in the region every year might soon be damaged and disappear.
The findings were published inthe peer-reviewed science journal Zootaxa last Friday.
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