We once thought of dinosaurs as really big creatures. Some were, while others were not so big. But you’ve never seen a four-inch-tall dino before! Scientists have described a new species found in Madagascar as a teacup-sized example of Ornithodira, a group of the last common ancestors of dinosaurs and pterosaurs. The 237-million-year-old fossil was named Kongonaphon kely, which means “tiny bug slayer.”
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K. kely is the smallest known species in a family of early dinosauromorphs called Lagerpetidae. These early examples of Ornithodira are known to be small, but with recent discoveries such as the tiny bug slayer, researchers are coming round to the idea that the smallness of discovered specimens is no accident.
“Although dinosaurs and gigantism are practically synonymous, an analysis of body size evolution in dinosaurs and other archosaurs in the context of this taxon and related forms demonstrates that the earliest-diverging members of the group may have been smaller than previously thought, and that a profound miniaturisation event occurred near the base of the avian stem lineage,” the team writes in a new paper.
This little dino no doubt struck terror into the hearts of nearby insects. Read more about it at Science Alert. -via Damn Interesting
(Image credit: Frank Ippolito/AMNH)
Source: neatorama