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Scientists are calling the Chilesaurus diegosuarezi a ‘platypus’-type species because it possessed a strange combination of characteristics that resemble a variety of different dinosaur groups.

This weird new dinosaur was found by a seven-year-old


Cheryl Santa Maria
Digital Reporter

Tuesday, April 28, 2015, 5:25 PM - A newly discovered dinosaur species in Chile has experts scratching their heads. Though closely related to the famous carnivore Tyrannosaurus rex, the new dinosaur appears to have preferred plants.

Scientists are calling the chilesaurus diegosuarezi a platypus-type species because it possessed a strange combination of characteristics, seemingly made up from a variety of different dinosaur groups. 

For example, it had a small skull with hands and fingers similar to the T Rex -- but its feet closely resembled long-necked dinosaurs.

The species' name is a nod to the country in which is was discovered and references Diego Suárez, the seven-year-old boy who discovered the fossil remains south of Chilean Patagonia, in rocks deposited approximately 145 million years ago during the Jurassic period.


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Diego was there with his geologist parents, who were studying rocks in the area.

According to a press release from the University of Birmingham, the boy stumbled on the rocks while he and his sister Macarena were searching for decorative stones.

The dinosaur's strange combination of characteristics had experts initially believe he had discovered several separate species, but more than a dozen Chilesaurus species have since been excavated.



"Chilesaurus shows how much data is still completely unknown about the early diversification of major dinosaur groups," Martín Ezcurra, a researcher at the University of Birmingham says in a statement.

"This study will force palaeontologists to take more care in the future in the identification of fragmentary or isolated dinosaur bones."

According to Ezcurra, Chilesaurus is the first complete dinosaur from the Jurassic period discovered in Chile, and one of the most anatomically correct theropod dinosaur discoveries in the southern hemisphere.

"Chilesaurus was an odd plant-eating dinosaur only to be found in Chile. However, the recurrent discovery in beds of the Toqui Formation of its bones and skeletons clearly demonstrates that Chilesaurus was, by far, the most abundant dinosaur in southwest Patagonia 145 million years ago," adds Dr. Fernando Novas of the Bernardino Rivadavia Natural Sciences Museum in Buenos Aires, Argentina and lead author in the study in a statement.

The complete paper on the finding has been published in Nature.



Sources: Nature | University of Birmingham

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