Newly discovered tiny dinosaur could be a missing link

Like it? Share it!

Newly discovered tiny dinosaur could be a missing link

Even though we have a pretty good sized dinosaur fossil record, there’s still a slight fossil gap between what are considered early dinosaurs (small bird-like dinos up until about the late Triassic) and late dinosaurs (the big fuckers). But a recent find in New Mexico seems to be a midway missing link dinosaur, with features of both early and late.

This dog-sized, ferocious-looking critter is called Daemonosaurus chauliodus, which means “buck-toothed evil lizard,” says Hans-Dieter Sues, lead author of the published research describing this dinosaur, and curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. The illustration above compares the head and neck with a quarter. You can see that it has a short snout and enormous front teeth.

This dinosaur provides a link between what paleontologists consider “early” and “later” dinosaurs. There’s a gap in the fossil record between the oldest known dinosaurs, which walked or ran on their hind legs about 230 million years ago in Argentina and Brazil, and other predatory dinosaurs that lived much later. Daemonosaurus chauliodus helps fill in a blank in dinosaur history.

This newly discovered species lived about 205 million years ago, and probably preyed on other dinosaurs and other small animals, Sues said. At that time, what is now the American Southwest was located close to the equator, so it was warm and monsoon-like with heavy seasonal precipitation. This dinosaur was probably active during the day, although its large eyes suggest it could have seen at night as well.

Via