Raptor TV LogoPosted on 03/20/2010 9:11:31 AM PDT by JoeProBono
Like a zombie clawing its way out of the grave, a new dinosaur species was discovered when scientists spotted a hand bone protruding from a cliff in the Gobi desert of Inner Mongolia, paleontologists have announced.
Called Linheraptor exquisitus, the new dinosaur is a raptor, a type of two-legged meat-eater, that lived during the late Cretaceous period in what is now northeastern China
"We were looking at these very tall red sandstone walls that were all abraded by the wind, and I saw this claw sticking out of the side of the cliff," recalls Jonah Choiniere, a grad student at George Washington University in Washington D.C. who found the fossil on a dig in 2008.
The claw wasn't protruding much: Less than a fingertip's worth of the bone was exposed. But further investigation revealed "bone after bone," Choiniere said, until the team had unearthed a nearly complete skeleton—one of the most complete raptor fossils ever found.
It was fortunate the team found the fossil when they did, Choiniere added, because once exposed, the dinosaur would have been rapidly lost to the elements.
"Erosion is very quick there," Choiniere said. "The whole specimen could have been turned to powdered bone dust in a few years, easily."
New Dinosaur Had Killer Claw
Stretching about 8 feet (2.5 meters) and weighing 55 pounds (25 kilograms), Linheraptor would have been a fast, agile animal that preyed on small horned dinosaurs related to Triceratops, which also lived the area. (See other prehistoric creatures of the Cretaceous.)
It's unclear how this particular Linheraptor died, but one idea is that it suffocated beneath a sand avalanche.
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Boy am I glad I don't live when raptors are around.
“Don’t go in the tall grass!”
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