14 DAY TRIAL // We all have that one cousin who insists on embarrassing us whenever we make the mistake to hang out with them in public. As it turns out, things were no different for T. rex.
In a recent paper in the journal Nature, paleontologists describe a newly discovered dinosaur species that, although closely related to the fierce T. rex, looked and behaved nothing like its feared cousin.
For starters, this dinosaur, named Chilesaurus diegosuarezi, only grew to measure about 3 meters (just shy of 10 feet) in length. As for its diet, researchers say that it was a vegetarian.
As illustrated in the images accompanying this article, Chilesaurus diegosuarezi looked like an odd mashup of dinosaurs belonging to several distinct groups.
Specialists with the University of Birmingham explain that, according to fossil evidence at hand, the creature's hands ended in just two fingers just like T. rex's.
Its feet, however, more closely resembled those of long-necked dinosaurs. Because of its odd anatomy, Chilesaurus diegosuarezi earned the nickname the platypus dinosaur.
“Chilesaurus can be considered a ‘platypus’ dinosaur because different parts of its body resemble those of other dinosaur groups due to mosaic convergent evolution.”
“In this process, a region or regions of an organism resemble others of unrelated species because of a similar mode of life and evolutionary pressures,” explains researcher Martín Ezcurra.
Writing in the journal Nature, paleontologists say the species populated present-day Chile some 145 million years ago, during the Late Jurassic period.
