Bizarre 'Chicken From Hell' Dinosaur Lived Alongside T. Rex

Bizarre 'Chicken From Hell' Dinosaur Lived Alongside T. Rex

Bizarre 'rooster from hell' dinosaur lived alongside T. rex

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A mounted duplicate skeleton of the new oviraptorosaurian dinosaur species Anzu wyliei on show in the Dinosaurs in Their Time exhibition at Carnegie Museum of Natural Historical past in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in this handout image courtesy of the Carnegie Museum of Natural Historical past. REUTERS/Carnegie Museum of Natural History/Handout through Reuters
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The brand new oviraptorosaurian dinosaur species Anzu wyliei is proven in this illustration courtesy of Scott Hartman, , surrounded by photographs of the person bones courtesy of Mark Klingler, Carnegie Museum of Pure Historical past. REUTERS/Scott Hartman, /Mark Klingler, Carnegie Museum of Pure Historical past/Handout by way of Reuters
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WASHINGTON Should you're a dinosaur with a nickname as funky as "the hen from hell," you had higher have the ability to again it up.
A dinosaur referred to as Anzu wyliei that scientists identified on Wednesday from fossils found in North Dakota and South Dakota does just that. It had a head shaped like a hen's, a toothless beak, an odd crest on its skull, fingers with huge sharp claws, lengthy legs for fast working and was in all probability coated in feathers.
It is the largest North American example of a sort of fowl-like dinosaur well known from Asia. Its in depth remains provide an in depth picture of the North American branch of these dinosaurs that had remained mysterious since their first bones had been found a couple of century ago, the scientists mentioned.
What would somebody suppose if they encountered this creature that lived 66 million years in the past? "I don't know whether they would scream and run away, or snicker, because it is simply an absurd-trying monster chicken," said College of Utah paleontologist Emma Schachner, one of the researchers.
Anzu wyliei measured about eleven feet lengthy, 5 feet tall at the hip and weighed about 440 to 660 pounds (200 to 300 kg), the researchers mentioned.
"It has the nickname 'the hen from hell.' And that's a fairly good description," stated paleontologist Matt Lamanna of the Carnegie Museum of Pure History in Pittsburgh, who led the analysis printed in the journal PLOS ONE.
"For those who may get in a time machine and return to Western North America on the end of the age of dinosaurs and see this thing, I would say your first reaction is perhaps, 'What a bizarre wanting chook,'" Lamanna added. "It might not appear like most individuals's conception of a dinosaur."
Scientists suppose birds arose much earlier from small feathered dinosaurs. The earliest recognized fowl is 150 million years old. This dinosaur's chook-like traits included a beak, hollow leg bones and air spaces in its backbone, paleontologist stated Hans-Dieter Sues of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History.
Its bizarre head crest resembled that of the cassowary, a flightless bird native to Australia and New Guinea.
Fossils of feathers are extremely rare and so they weren't discovered with any of the three partial skeletons of Anzu wyliei. But the researchers imagine it had feathers based mostly on fossils of close kinfolk from China that have clear proof of them.
ASIAN COUSINS
It closely resembles its Asian cousins like Oviraptor, whose fossils have been discovered brooding over a clutch of its eggs in a bird-like manner. The Asian part of the household contains many effectively-preserved examples, from ones as small as a turkey to 1 even greater than Anzu wyliei. The North American branch till now had been represented by largely fragmentary remains.
Anzu wyliei lived at the sundown of the age of dinosaurs, not long earlier than an unlimited meteorite is assumed to have struck Earth about sixty five.5 million years in the past and wiped them out along with hordes of different creatures, whereas sparing many birds.
It lived in a humid, heat, low-lying setting dotted with rivers and swamps that may have seemed like the Louisiana bayou. It was lush with vegetation and plant-consuming dinosaurs like the horned Triceratops, armored Ankylosaurus, dome-headed Pachycephalosaurus and duck-billed Edmontosaurus.
But in addition hanging across the neighborhood was one of many fiercest predators in Earth's historical past, Tyrannosaurus rex.
Anzu wyliei could have been an omnivore, munching on leaves, fruits or flowers whereas also swallowing the occasional mammal silly enough to cross its path, the researchers mentioned.
It most likely wanted to be careful to not end up on another person's menu. "To a T. rex, this thing would not appear like a 'rooster from hell.' It might appear to be lunch," Lamanna stated.
Its genus name, Anzu, is named after a feathered demon in Sumerian mythology. Its species identify, wyliei, honors the grandson of a trustee of the Carnegie museum in Pittsburgh where the lead researcher works.
The three sets of bones - which collectively included virtually all parts of the skeleton - come from a region famed for dinosaur remains often known as the Hell Creek Formation of the Dakotas and Montana. Two of the three sets of stays had partially healed accidents, maybe the remnants of a few dinosaur tussles.
(Reporting by Will Dunham; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
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