By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON— The extensive dinosaur group that consisted of huge predators such as T. rex likewise was occupied by a variety of oddballs, weirdos and castaways. A recently explained dinosaur from Mongolia– the size of a goose and looking a bit like one, too– fits that description.
The dinosaur, called Natovenator polydontus, lived about 72 million years earlier throughout the Cretaceous Duration and was constructed like a diving bird with a structured body while having a goose-like lengthened neck and a long flattened snout with a mouth bearing more than 100 little teeth, researchers stated on Thursday. It practically undoubtedly was covered in plumes, they included.
” Natovenator has lots of strange qualities,” stated paleontologist Yuong-Nam Lee of Seoul National University in South Korea, lead author of the research study released in the journal Communications Biology.
While it was a cousin of fast little predator Velociraptor, Natovenator was adjusted to a semi-aquatic way of life in a freshwater environment, possibly drifting on rivers and lakes, paddling with its front limbs, and utilizing its versatile neck to capture fish and bugs or diving undersea to record its victim, the scientists stated.
Its unspoiled remains– a skeleton about 70% total– were uncovered in the Gobi Desert, which over the years has actually been a gold mine for dinosaur fossils.
Natovenator belongs to the dinosaur group called theropods– sharing characteristics consisting of bipedalism– best understood for big meat-eaters consisting of Tyrannosaurus, Tarbosaurus and Giganotosaurus. The theropods, numerous of which were feathered, branched out in uncommon instructions with examples such as long-clawed ground sloth-like Therizinosaurus, ostrich-like Struthiomimus, termite-eating Mononykus and the whole bird family tree.
” The variety of theropod dinosaurs by the end of the Cretaceous is absolutely fantastic,” stated University of Alberta paleontologist and research study co-author Philip Currie.
” I think there will be more discoveries of remarkable, unusual theropods in the future,” Lee included.
Few of the dinosaurs called “non-avian”– to put it simply, not the birds– are understood to have actually lived a semi-aquatic way of life. A close relative of Natovenator called Halszkaraptor, explained in 2017, lived a comparable way of life at approximately the very same time in the very same area. Both had a really bird-like look and were carefully associated to the bird family tree.
Natovenator determined about 18 inches (45 cm) long, with a skull about 3 inches (7 cm) long. Its front limbs appeared rather flattened, possibly as an adjustment for paddling and swimming. The streamlining of its body is revealed by ribs that point towards the tail, as in diving birds, a plan that minimizes drag in the water and enables effective swimming.
” Natovenator– which suggests ‘swimming burglar’– is an incredible little animal for a number of factors. It is little and fragile. When we discovered it, we doubted regarding its recognition due to the fact that it looked more like a lizard or mammal skeleton than a dinosaur. Once it was prepared, we recognized it was a theropod dinosaur, however what kind? It made sense when Halszkaraptor was explained,” Currie stated.
” It is extremely specialized for residing in an environment not normal for an animal associated to Velociraptor and its other family members. The majority of people think about dinosaurs as customized land animals, not taking on crocodiles in the water,” Currie included.
There were numerous diving birds throughout the Cretaceous, consisting of The United States and Canada’s Hesperornis, which reached about 6 feet (1.8 meters) long, however none are understood from the location Natovenator occupied.
” More than 30 various family trees of tetrapods (terrestrial vertebrates) have actually separately attacked water environments,” Lee stated. “Why not dinosaurs?”
