Unusual Chilesaurus may link plant-eaters and predators
Written by News on 16/08/2017
A freak dinosaur with a mixture of different features may have been the missing link between plant eaters and predators, scientists say.
Chilesaurus, discovered in Chile in 2004 and first described in 2015, was originally thought to be a vegetarian member of the theropods, the family of two-legged meat eaters that included the T rex and Velociraptor.
However, new research published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters, suggests Chilesaurus could have actually belonged to the ornithischia – herbivorous dinosaurs whose structure was similar to that of a bird.
Professor Paul Barrett, one of the scientists from London’s Natural History Museum, said: "Chilesaurus is one of the most puzzling and intriguing dinosaurs ever discovered.
"Its weird mix of features places it in a key position in dinosaur evolution and helps to show how some of the really big splits between the major groups might have come about."
The researchers analysed more than 450 anatomical characteristics of early dinosaurs to find Chilesaurus’s correct place in the dinosaur family tree.
It is now thought Chilesaurus was related to plant eaters Triceratops, Stegosaurus and Iguanadon.
The 150-million-year-old Chilean oddity had the head of a carnivore but had flat, plant grinding teeth.
Key traits of ornithischians include a bird-like hip structure and a beak-like jaw, but while Chilesaurus had classic ornithischian hips, it lacked the distinctive beak and its mouth parts resembled those of a meat eater, with the exception of carnivore teeth.
Lead author Matthew Baron, a PhD student at Cambridge University’s Department of Earth Sciences, said: "Chilesaurus almost looks like it was stitched together from different animals, which is why it baffled everybody.
"There was a split in the dinosaur family tree, and the two branches took different evolutionary directions.
"This seems to have happened because of change in diet for Chilesaurus.
"It seems it became more advantageous for some of the meat eating dinosaurs to start eating plants, possibly even out of necessity."
(c) Sky News 2017: Unusual Chilesaurus may link plant-eaters and predators
