Students discover a new species of dinosaur
A new species of dinosaur which lived 75 million years ago and was a relative of the famous Velociraptor has been discovered.A pair of PhD students stumbled on an exceptionally well preserved dinosaur, named Linheraptor exquisitus, during a field trip to Inner Mongolia.
The 2.5m long creature would have been a fast, agile predator that preyed on small horned dinosaurs and experts say it had a large ‘killing claw’ on the foot.
Brit student Michael Pittman and pal Jonah Choiniere from the US say they found the dinosaur fossil sticking out of a cliff.
You can tell they are students -- because any experienced paleontologist would have made it sound like harder work.
Speaking of the find Pittman said: "Jonah saw a claw protruding from the cliff face. He carefully removed it and handed it to me. "We went through its features silently but he wanted my identification first. I told him it was from a carnivorous dinosaur and when he agreed I’m surprised nobody in London heard us shouting,
"I’ve always wanted to discover a dinosaur since I was a kid, and I’ve never given up on the idea.
"It was amazing that my first discovery was from a Velociraptor relative."
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University College London
