14 DAY TRIAL // University of Pennsylvania scientists now claim that, contrary to popular opinion, several fossil remains discovered over the past few years do not belong to three different dinosaur species.
On the contrary, the animals were all part and parcel of the same species.
Thus, their remains only ended up differing greatly from one another due to the conditions in which they were buried and compressed.
According to Eureka Alert, this means that the genus Psittacosaurus, which was believed to encompass three species, is made up of just one species.
“Our study found all of these false 'species' that are not biological species but are apparent species caused by the process of fossilization,” study author Peter Dodson explains.
The dinosaurs belonging to this species were plant eaters. They walked the Earth about 120-125 million years ago, and had a beaked face that resembled that of a turtle.