BackHuman-size dinosaur walked on earth 71 million years ago
Like a bird, the dinosaur Currie's Alberta hunter was covered by feathers and like humans it walked on two legs, a study says
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New Delhi: Seventy-one million years ago, a dinosaur about the size of a human walked the earth. Like a bird, it was covered by feathers and like humans, it walked on two legs.
In a study published on Monday, the scientists who discovered new dinosaur species said it is closely related to another species that pre-dated it by five million years, but is distinguishable by its skull features.
The Canadian scientists have named the new species Currie’s Alberta hunter (Albertavenator curriei), after renowned Canadian palaeontologist Philip J. Currie.
“Palaeontologists initially thought that the bones of Albertavenator belonged to its close relative Troodon, which lived around 76-million-years-ago — five million years before Albertavenator. Both dinosaurs walked on two legs, were covered in feathers, and were about the size of a person," said an official statement by the Canadian Science Publishing (CSP). CSP brings out Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences that published the study on 17 July. The study was conducted by scientists from the Royal Ontario Museum and the Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum.
It explained that the comparisons of bones forming the top of the head reveal that Albertavenator had a distinctively shorter and more robust skull than Troodon, its famously brainy relative.
“The delicate bones of these small feathered dinosaurs are very rare. We were lucky to have a critical piece of the skull that allowed us to distinguish Albertavenator as a new species. We hope to find a more complete skeleton of Albertavenator in the future, as this would tell us so much more about this fascinating animal," said Dr. David Evans, senior curator of vertebrate palaeontology at the Royal Ontario Museum and the leader of the study.
The statement said identifying new species from fragmentary fossils is a challenge.
“Complicating matters of this new find are the hundreds of isolated teeth that have been found in Alberta and previously attributed to Troodon. Teeth from a jaw that likely pertains to Albertavenator appear very similar to the teeth of Troodon, making them unusable for distinguishing between the two species," the statement said.
“This discovery really highlights the importance of finding and examining skeletal material from these rare dinosaurs," said Derek Larson, who is assistant curator of the Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum and co-author on the study.
The bones of Albertavenator were found in the badlands surrounding the Royal Tyrrell Museum, which Dr. Currie played a key role in establishing in the early 1980s. The fossils of Albertavenator studied by Evans and his team are housed in the collections of the Royal Tyrrell Museum.
“This is another example of a new species of dinosaur being discovered by re-examining museum research collections, which continually add to our understanding of the evolution of life on Earth. This study suggests that more detailed studies of fragmentary fossils may reveal additional, currently unrecognized, species," the statement added.
Thomas Cullen, a Ph.D. student of Evans at the Toronto University and one of the co-author of the study said, “It was only through our detailed anatomical and statistical comparisons of the skull bones that we were able to distinguish between Albertavenator and Troodon."
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