Newly Discovered, Parrot-Like Dinosaur Roamed North America Alongside T. Rex

While larger dinosaurs are comparatively well-known, finding smaller species paints a more complete picture of life before the mass extinction

Riley Black
Science Correspondent

January 24, 2024



Paleontologists have recognized three related, parrot-like dinosaurs in the Hell Creek Formation. Eoneophron infernalis (top left) walks by MOR 752 (bottom left) and Anzu wyliei (right). Illustration by Zubin Erik Dutta / Atkins-Weltman et al., 2024, PLOS One, CC-BY 4.0


For more than a century, paleontologists have been scouring western North America’s Hell Creek Formation for new dinosaurs. The rocks preserve some of the last non-avian dinosaurs before Earth’s fifth mass extinction, including icons such as Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops. Now, experts have uncovered a new dinosaur species from the Cretaceous layers, a turkey-sized creature that was originally thought to be a young example of a different dinosaur.

Named Eoneophron infernalis and described Wednesday in PLOS One, the creature is a member of a mysterious group of roughly parrot-like dinosaurs called caenagnathids. Its discovery helps paint a fuller picture of life on Earth in the days before the infamous asteroid strike 66 million years ago.

Scientists principally identified E. infernalis by closely examining its hind limb from the thigh bones to the base of the foot. The precise anatomical details of the fossils, as well as the dinosaur’s age at death, help differentiate it from other Cretaceous species and hint at a previously hidden array of beaked dinosaurs that lived alongside iconic Hell Creek species such as Edmontosaurus and Pachycephalosaurus.

The toothless caenagnathids were related to dinosaurs like Oviraptor from Mongolia, although their fossil record in North America is much sparser and often represented only by a few skeletal parts. But a fossil described a decade ago—affectionately nicknamed the “chicken from hell”—finally provided paleontologists with a more complete view of the family. Named Anzu, this dinosaur was big for a caenagnathid, about the size of an ostrich with a long tail, and was the most complete dinosaur of its kind found within the Hell Creek Formation. When paleontologists found smaller caenagnathid bones, it at first seemed likely that they could be from a young Anzu.

More:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/new-parrot-like-dinosaur-roamed-the-same-habitat-as-t-rex-180983654/