Newly discovered dinosaur has a streamlined body like a diving bird

2 years ago 105

An investigation of a fossil has revealed a caller taxon of dinosaur named Natovenator polydontus. It was semi-aqautic, looked a spot similar a duck and ate meat

Life 1 December 2022

By Corryn Wetzel

An artist's content of Natovenator polydontus

A caller taxon of dinosaur is the archetypal recovered to person a streamlined assemblage similar diving birds but not beryllium to the feathered people of dinosaurs that modern-day birds evolved from. This suggests that streamlined bodies evolved independently successful antithetic lineages of theropods, a radical of hollow-boned dinosaurs that walked connected 2 legs and chiefly ate meat, including Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor.

“It is the archetypal lawsuit among non-avian dinosaurs showing a streamlined ribcage similar those seen successful galore modern semi-aquatic animals adapted to swimming,” says Andrea Cau astatine the University of Bologna successful Italy, who was not progressive successful the work.

Yuong-Nam Lee astatine Seoul National University successful South Korea and his colleagues examined a enigma fossil unearthed successful Mongolia’s Gobi godforsaken successful 2008 that included a astir implicit skeleton: a skull, spinal column, 1 forelimb and 2 hindlimbs. They noticed the carnal had a sleek assemblage and goose-like neck, thing ne'er seen earlier successful a non-avian theropod.

Furthermore, “the rib predisposition and signifier intelligibly bespeak that this carnal had a streamlined body, arsenic penguins do”, Lee says. Together, this suggests the caller dinosaur was a skilled swimmer and diver.

The skull besides had galore needle-like teeth, starring researchers to sanction the taxon Natovenator polydontus, oregon “swimming huntsman with galore teeth”. They estimation that the taxon lived during the Late Cretaceous Period betwixt 100 cardinal and 66 cardinal years agone and posit that it ate food and insects.

The researchers besides recovered that N. polydontus is genetically intimately related to Halszkaraptor, a genus of tiny non-avian dinosaurs with lone 1 known species. Since the Halszkaraptor discovery successful 2017, scientists person debated whether it was semi-aquatic. Now, the similarities betwixt the N. polydontus and the Halszkaraptor provide further grounds that the Halszkaraptor was so adapted for beingness connected the water.

“It is simply a invited find which contributes to solving the arguable manner of the halszkaraptorine dinosaurs,” says Cau.

Journal reference: Communications Biology, DOI: 10.1038/s42003-022-04119-9