Smiling dinosaur looks like it came out of that damn Disney 'Dinosaurs' movie

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Smiling dinosaur looks like it came out of that damn Disney ‘Dinosaurs’ movie

Disney’s ‘Dinosaurs’ was a low point in Disney’s history, even though it was one of their first non-Pixar computer animated films. I’m sorry, I just couldn’t get over dinosaurs with human-like teeth. That just bugged the shit out of me. But now it looks like I was wrong— there apparently was at least one dinosaur that had creepy human teeth.

The new dinosaur unearthed in Wyoming had such large teeth that its mouth perpetually looked to be smiling a huge grin.

The dinosaur, described in the latest Journal of Systematic Paleontology, is called Kaatedocus siberi, with its name deriving from Diplodocus and the Native American Crow word for “small.” Diplodocus was yet another dinosaur with a winning smile. This latest find was an early ancestor to that dino.

“Kaatedocus walked on four limbs, had a long neck and a whiplash tail, such as the famous Diplodocus did,” co-author Octavio Mateus told Discovery News.

Mateus, of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa & Museu da Lourinhã, is one of the world’s leading paleontologists, and is particularly known for his work on sauropods — iconic large, plant-eating dinosaurs with long necks and tails. He has studied sauropods on four continents.

Kaatedocus was one such dino. Its herbivorous diet helps to explain its “grin.”

“Kaatedocus had a set of pencil-like teeth in the front part of the muzzle,” Mateus explained. “They were adapted for eating plants. As for many sauropods, because those teeth were not adapted for chewing, Kaatedocus probably ingested gastroliths or gizzard stones.”

Via