Paleontologists 71-A million-year-old carnivorous dinosaur in southern Mongolia they believe it is a body designed for swimming and diving for hunting. Although it closely resembled a modern bird, it was actually a non-avian dinosaur, a phenomenon that is likely an example of convergent evolution. which unrelated creatures develop similar characteristics.
It’s called a dinosaur natovenator polydontus, or “multi-toothed swimmer hunter”. His final analysis shows fossilized remains the animal was bipedal and built for diving. Complete description of the newly discovered animal ietc has been published in Communication Biology.
“Finding semi-aquatic dinosaurs means dinosaurs had a very high ecological diversity” Yuong-Nam Lee, a paleontologist at Seoul National University and lead author of the study, wrote. In an email to Gizmodo. “More than 30 different tetrapod lineages have independently invaded aquatic ecosystems. Why not for dinosaurs?’
Besides his many teeth, N. polydontus he had a slender body and a long neck. from above, the extinct dinosaur was very similar to a goose or a cormorant, modern a diving bird, but it had a long tail. The skeleton is incomplete – the researchers found its skull, spine, front and two hind legs, but it was possible to determine the morphology of the animal from the remains.
G/O Media may receive a commission
“The angle between each rib shaft and its associated articular vertebra is very low, as in many diving birds, but unlike terrestrial theropods,” he said. “Certain existing diving birds—such as alcids and phalacrocoracidsit also has ribs extending backwards. In these animals, the ribs directed backwards help to swim, making the body more streamlined.
Lee’s team hopes they can find the contents of a bird’s stomach and learn more about its diet. This kind of discovery is not without precedent; last year, paleontologists found the the fossilized marine equivalent of the turduke in modern Germany.
Last year, a different team of the same researchers was behind the new paper He announced the discovery of an armored ankylosaurus from the same region in Mongolia. They are is set that ankylosaurs may have dug defensive trenches in times of danger like modern horned lizards.
More fossils need to be found to better test these ideas, but taken together, the fossils show the dynamism of biodiversity during the Cretaceous.
More: Paleontologists find evidence of dinosaur nesting near the North Pole
