110 million-year-old rare, toothless dinosaur discovered in Australia
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Scientists have recently discovered the bones of a rare type of dinosaur in Australia. It is called elaphrosaur, meaning “light-footed lizard”.
What is so rare about it? It was a toothless dinosaur. Elaphrosaur was related to the Tyrannosaurus Rex and Velociraptor and lived 110 million years ago.
This is the first-ever elaphrosaur bone to be found in Australia. Previously, it has been found in Tanzania, China and Argentina.
- A 5-cm piece of its neck bone was found in 2015 near Cape Otway in Victoria, Australia.
- Scientists initially thought that it was from a flying reptile called a pterosaur.
- However, palaeontologist Dr Stephen Poropat later identified the bone as an elaphrosaur. Palaeontologists are scientists who study fossils.
What do we know about this dinosaur?
- This elaphrosaur was about two metres long. But previous records show that they could grow up to 6 metres in length.
- The Australian elaphrosaur had long necks, stumpy arms with small hands, and relatively lightly-built bodies.
- Elaphrosaurus had teeth when they were young. However, as they became adults, the teeth were replaced by a horny beak.
- Scientists believe that this change could be due to changes in food habits as they grew older.
Here is a short video on dinosaurs. Video credit: National Geographic/Youtube
Dinosaurs lived millions and millions of years ago. But even today, they remain very popular in our collective imagination. We keep finding out new fascinating things about them and how they lived their lives. However, like animals today, there were many many different types of dinosaurs. Some were as small as birds while some were as huge as whales today. So, keep coming along with us at Curious Times as we go on a journey to find out more about these amazing ancient animals.
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