A farmer and construction workers in China have discovered the remains of a new species of bird-like dinosaur that appears to have died after getting stuck in the mud.
The find, experts say, adds weight to the idea that such animals were thriving shortly before the mass extinction 66 million years ago.
Around the size of a sheep, with a beak, wings and a crest on its head, the flightless creature is thought to be a species of oviraptorosaur - a group of bird-like, feathered, toothless and short-skulled non-avian dinosaurs that were roaming the land in the period shortly before an asteroid slammed into Earth off the coast of Mexico, triggering the annihilation of swaths of life.
“If you saw it alive you would just think it was a weird bird,” said Stephen Brusatte, a palaeontologist at the University of Edinburgh who, with colleagues in China, co-authored the research published in the journal Scientific Reports.
But the newly discovered dinosaur appears to have suffered an untimely demise. “It looked like it got trapped in mud, and that’s how it died,” said Brusatte. “The neck is arched, the head is raised up, like it’s sticking its head above something, and both of the arms are outstretched and to the sides of the body, and so it’s like it’s trying to free itself.”
Named Tongtianlong limosus - which means “muddy dragon on the road to heaven” the dinosaur appears to have died after getting stuck in the mud. Its fossilized remains were discovered on the building.
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