The strange Neutronichus and a small predator from the zoolosaur family lived 90 million years ago in a swampy forest
Reuters, Haaretz
A drawing of a zoolosaurus. "The Coyote of the Cretaceous Period"
Scientists, investigating a mysterious period in the age of dinosaurs, excavated and discovered two new species of dinosaurs in the state of New Mexico. One of the species, which the researchers say is "very, very strange", belongs to the same lineage as the super carnivore Tyrannosaurus rex, but was content to eat plants.
Paleontologists Jim Kirkland and Doug Wolff, who announced the discovery, said the two dinosaurs - the strange Neuteronychus and a small predator from the as-yet-unnamed zoolosaur family - lived 90 million years ago in a swampy forest. Both had bird-like features, and both were likely feathered. They were found less than a mile apart, near the border between New Mexico and Arizona, in an area known as the Zuni Basin, which was a few miles from the 1,600-mile-wide coastline that divided North America. At that time - the middle of the Cretaceous period of the Mesozoic era - there was an extreme warming of the earth, which melted the ice caps at the poles, raised the height of the oceans considerably and reduced the amount of dry land on the planet. Almost no dinosaur fossils have been found from this period. "The discovery opens a window to a period that we otherwise would not have known about," said Tom Holtz, a paleontologist at the University of Maryland who contributed to the study.
Nechus is a member of the theropod class of meat-eating dinosaurs, which includes Tyrannosaurus and Allosaurus, but it likely evolved to be a vegetarian, said Kirkland, Utah's state paleontologist. It weighed about a ton, was about 4.5 to 6 meters long and stood about 3.5-3 meters tall. It was bipedal, and walked more upright than its carnivorous relatives. It had a long and thin neck, long arms, nimble hands, curved claws about 10 cm long on its fingers, a big belly, a small head, leaf-like teeth suitable for cutting vegetables and a relatively short tail.
Neuteronychus is the first dinosaur from the group of dinosaurs called therizinosaurus to be found in the United States. The other dinosaurs belonging to the group were found in China and Mongolia. Kirkland said the dinosaur reminded him of large, slow, large-clawed mammals that lived in the Ice Age and went extinct XNUMX years ago. "A modern equivalent could be the panda, which is also a vegetarian even though it evolved from meat eaters," Holtz said.
No feathers were found on the Neutronichus fossil, but researchers speculate that the dinosaur had feathers that left no trace of the muddy environment in which it was found.
The zoolosaurus is smaller than the Neutronichus: it is about two and a half meters long
and about a meter high. Its body resembles that of the Tyrannosaurus, which is much larger
more, but Zoolosaurus has proportionally longer arms. he
Feeds on lizards and small mammals. Wolf called the zoolosaur "the coyote
of the Cretaceous period".
No feathers were found on the zoolosaurus either, but the researchers speculate that it had
Feathers around the head, along the back, arms and legs.
A painting by Nathronichos. "A modern equivalent could be the panda"
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