
AsianScientist (May 6, 2013) – Researchers have discovered a new species of small theropod, or meat-eating, dinosaur in northwestern China.
The discovery was made by Professor James Clark of George Washington University, along with his then doctoral student Jonah Choiniere and a team of international researchers.
In a research paper published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, the researchers describe the discovery of the dinosaur specimen in a remote region of Xinjiang in 2006. They recovered the skull, mandible, and partial skeleton of the dinosaur, which was estimated to be one meter long (three feet) and about three pounds.
“All that was exposed on the surface was a bit of the leg,” said Clark. “We were pleasantly surprised to find a skull buried in the rock too.”
The dinosaur is named Aorun zhaoi, after the Dragon King in the Chinese epic tale Journey to the West. It was still less than a year old when it became a fossil.
“We were able to look at microscopic details of Aorun’s bones and they showed that the animal was less than a year old when it died on the banks of a stream,” said Choiniere.
Aorun lived more than 161 million years ago, in the earliest part of the Late Jurassic Period. Its small, numerous teeth suggest that it would have eaten prey like lizards and small relatives of today’s mammals and crocodilians.
This is the fifth new theropod discovered at the Wucaiwan locality by the team, co-led by Dr. Clark and Dr. Xu Xing of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The article can be found at: Choiniere JN et al. (2013) A juvenile specimen of a new coelurosaur (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the Middle–Late Jurassic Shishugou Formation of Xinjiang, People’s Republic of China.
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Source: GWU. Photo: James Clark/GWU.
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