Tiny dinosaur species identified

October 21, 2009

A new species of dinosaur has been identified 30 years after its fossilised remains were discovered.

Fruitadens haagarorum, researchers say, is one of the smallest dinosaurs known to science.

In the Royal Society journal Proceedings B, the researchers say that the dinosaur weighed less that 1kg.

The fossils have been housed at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County since being discovered in Colorado in 1979.

According to the researchers, the tiny dinosaur was agile and a fast runner. It lived in the Upper Jurassic period, about 150 million years ago.

It was a member of a group of dinosaurs called the ornithischians, which were largely plant-eating creatures that included the far more imposing Triceratops and Stegosaurus.

It would have darted between the legs of some of the largest known long-necked sauropods, such as Brachiosaurus.

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The dinosaur was approximately 70cm from nose to tail

news.bbc.co.uk...

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A study of its tiny jawbone revealed that the animal was likely an omnivore

The study that identified the diminutive creature was led by Richard Butler from the Bavarian State Collection for Palaeontology in Munich, Germany.

He told BBC News that examination of the dinosaur's teeth had revealed Fruitadens was probably an omnivore - eating smaller animals as well as vegetation.

It almost looks like a lizzard opposed to a Dinosaur....

Oh my it must have been a scary world for those little buggers!

Cool find

I bet my cat would win in a fight.

Yea another new dino! So many museums have fossil's they haven't identified, makes me wonder what other new species no one has taken the time to find. Did they find that one under the fossilized foot of a bigger one?


[edit on 3-11-2009 by hangedman13]

very cool, nice find.

I wonder if it was a scavenger. YOu see those little fish tailing whales and sharkes, maybe this creature did the same thing, darting around the bigger guys for morsels.

Always thrilled when a new species is "discovered". The mesozoic era has always been a favorite of mine

Maybe this and other finds will offset this somewhat depressing, but definitely beneficial trend.

www.sciencedaily.com...