Fossils Uncovered Of New Species of Theropod, Named Aorun Zhaoi — Dragon King

This post comes to us from Planetsave.com. For more along these lines, visit Planetsave or some of its most popular categories: Global Warming, Science, Going Green Tips, Animals, or 10 Friday Photos.

A bit of exposed leg led to a very impressive discovery in the remote Xinjiang region of northwestern China. A new species of Theropod, named Aorun zhaoi, for the Dragon King from the Chinese epic tale of Journey to the West, was discovered by a George Washington University biologist and his team.

This flesh-eating, carnivorous dinosaur was young when his body fell to the earth on the banks of a ancient stream. Less a year old when he died, his short existence has continued to linger on in the form of bones, which have at present resurfaced as fossil remains.

Dr. Choiniere, at the time of discovery a doctorate student working under Dr. Clark, explained that they determined his young age by studying the microscopic details of Aorun’s bones.

“The finding was arrived at due to the work of James Clark, the Ronald B. Weintraub Professor of Biology, in the Department of Biological Sciences of GW’s Columbian College of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Clark, along with doctoral student Jonah Choiniere and a team of international researchers, who dug up the dinosaur specimen in Xinjiang in China in 2006.”

From George Washington University: “All that was exposed on the surface was a bit of the leg,” said Dr. Clark. “We were pleasantly surprised to find a skull buried in the rock too.” In a research paper published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, Drs. Clark and Choiniere explain recovering the skull, mandible and partial skeleton of the dinosaur. The new theropod was an estimated 1 meter or just over 3 feet long and probably weighed about 3 pounds.”

“Its small, numerous teeth suggest that it would have eaten prey like lizards and small relatives of today’s mammals and crocodilians. This is the fifth new theropod discovered at the Wucaiwan locality by the team, co-led by Dr. Clark and Dr. Xu Xing of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.”

This new discovery just goes to show how much remains unknown about the relatively distant past when this species live. What kind of life forms lived back that that we as of now know nothing of?

Fossils Uncovered Of New Species of Theropod, Named Aorun Zhaoi — Dragon King was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.