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All hail " chief flying lizard " : The old kernel - deplete dinosaur ever discovered in the United Kingdom may sound monstrous , but the taloned vulture was really a radar target - squeak , a new bailiwick finds .
The chicken - sizedinosaurlived in what is now Wales between 215 million and 200 million year ago , during the lateTriassic period . It was probable an vertex piranha , despite its petite size , the researchers found , so , they named itPendraig milnerae . Its genus name means " chief dragon " in Middle Welsh , a computer address to the Medieval Welsh full term " chief warrior , " and its mintage name reward Angela Milner , a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London who helped turn up the dodo of the species in the museum ’s collectionsbefore her deathin August .
An illustration of the newly describedPendraig milnerae, the oldest known meat-eating dinosaur from the United Kingdom. Next to it are three lizard-like reptiles known scientifically asClevosaurus cambrica.
" Pendraig milneraelived near the commencement of the evolution of the meat - eating dinosaur , " canvass first generator Stephan Spiekman , a research fellow at the Natural History Museum who specialize in Triassic reptilian evolution , say in a statement . " It ’s readable from the bones we have that it was a meat - feeder , but too soon in theevolutionof this group , these creature were quite small , in dividing line to the very famous inwardness - eating dinosaurs likeT. rex , which evolved much by and by . "
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Researchers describedP. milneraefrom an uncompleted specimen , as well as two extra fragmentary specimen , discovered at a quarry in Pant - y - ffynnon , a hamlet in southern Wales . The dinosaur ’s remains indicate that it was about 3 foot ( 1 meter ) long , including its rear , and that it was a theropod — a chemical group of bipedal , mostly meat - corrode dinosaur .
Various fossilized bones of the “chief dragon” dinosaurPendraig milnerae, including different views of its pelvis and vertebrae (left) and left femur (right).
" It ’s an exciting discovery of a fresh species of theropod from the morning of the dinosaurs ( late Triassic ) , a time yielding less than a fistful of such species in all of Europe ( and the first from the UK ) , " Darla Zelenitsky , an associate professor of palaeobiology at the University of Calgary in Alberta who was not take with the field of study , told Live Science in an email . " It would have looked something like the tiny and apparently precious ( yet notorious)Compsognathusfrom the movie ' [ The bemused World :] Jurassic Park . ' "
Although researchers get word the chief ’s fogy decennary ago , it was n’t key as a newfound species until now . When read aged author Susannah Maidment , a senior researcher of paleobiology at the Natural History Museum , decide to reexamine its bizarre remains , she severalize Milner that she could n’t find the specimen , Maidment tell in the financial statement . " And so she [ Milner ] went by , and about three hours after , she had it , " Maidment said . " This newspaper would not have been possible without her . "
Milner was a theropod specialiser who helped describe the " enceinte - clawed " spinosaurid dinosaurBaryonyx walkeriin the 1980s , and she also studied the brain anatomy ofArchaeopteryx , the early known birdlike dinosaur . " I am also felicitous to see this [ unexampled ] dinosaur was advert after Dr. Angela Milner , who did research on dinosaur at a time when few women did , " Zelenitsky state .
Dinosaur dwarf?
The main dragon ’s slight stature may be a answer of its surround , the researchers say .
" The area where these specimens were found was most probable an island during the time period in which it lived , " Spiekman said . " metal money which endure on island often tend to become smaller than those on the mainland in a phenomenon called island dwarfism . "
To investigate this idea , Spiekman and his colleagues used statistical analysis to compare the sizing ofP. milneraewith other early theropods and coelophysoids , a mathematical group within the theropod family thatP. milneraebelonged to . But while some theropods develop to be self-aggrandising during the Triassic , coelophysoids rest " considerably smaller , " the research worker compose in the study .
" The solvent point thatPendraig[milnerae]is indeed small , even for a bird-footed dinosaur of that clock time period , but not unambiguously so , " Spiekman said .
What ’s more , it appears that the museum ’s fossils ofP. milneraemight not be from amply matured somebody . " SoPendraigmight have gotten somewhat bigger than the specimen we have so far , which limits our ability to perform reliable body size analyses , " Spiekman said .
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In other password , research worker will need to observe more fossils of this specie or other possible dinosaur nanus species from the Triassic period in Wales to see whether island dwarfism occurred there . " If we could rise it , it would be the early known happening of this evolutionary phenomenon , " Spiekman suppose .
But even ifP. milneraewasn’t a gnome , the finding is still a large deal for the region . " Dinosaur discovery are really uncommon in Wales , and this is only the third dinosaur species do it from the country , " study co - researcher Richard Butler , a professor of palaeobiology at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom , said in the statement .
The study was published online Wednesday ( Oct. 6 ) in the journalRoyal Society Open Science .
Originally published on Live Science .
