[Animals] Never-before-seen 'missing link' dinosaur walks, drinks and socializes in stunning new animation

[BirSaNN]

The newly discovered duck-billed dinosaur, Gonkoken nanoi, likely grew to around 13 feet long and weighed up to 1 ton, new analysis reveals.

Paleontologists have unearthed a never-before-seen species of primitive duck-billed dinosaur in Chile — the likes of which has never been found in the Southern Hemisphere. The discovery of the car-size herbivore, which has been brought to life in a stunning new video, changes what we know about the history of its flat-nosed family.  

The newfound species, named Gonkoken nanoi, belongs to the family Hadrosauridae — a group of plant-eating dinosaurs commonly referred to as duck-billed dinosaurs because of the flattened bones in their snout. The name Gonkoken means "similar to a wild duck or swan" in the Aónikenk (Southern Tehuelches) language used by the Indigenous people who inhabited the area where the fossils were found until the end of the 19th century.

G. nanoi likely measured between 11.5 and 13 feet (3.5 to 4 meters) long and weighed 1,300 to 2,200 pounds (600 and 1,000 kilograms), researchers wrote in a translated statement. G. nanoi had hundreds of teeth "with which they could grind, crush, and cut virtually any plant material, including wood," the scientists added. 

Researchers uncovered the remains of G. nanoi in a large "bone bed" in the Valle del Río de Las Chinas sector of Chilean Patagonia. The preserved pile of around 50 fossils included the bones of at least three individuals that were a mix of adults and juveniles. The bones, which include teeth, vertebrae, skull bones, jaw fragments, limb bones and ribs, date back to around 72 million years ago, during the late Cretaceous period (145 million to 66 million years ago). 

The discovery of so many adult and juvenile fossils in one place suggests that G. nanoi was highly social and likely lived in sizable groups, the researchers wrote in the statement. 

In a new study published June 16 in the journal Science Advances, researchers used the bones to recreate the species' skeleton. In a video press conference in Spanish, researchers shared a short clip created by animator PaleoGDY that shows what G. nanoi may have looked like. 

link: https://www.livescience.com/animals/dinosaurs/never-before-seen-missing-link-dinosaur-walks-drinks-and-socializes-in-stunning-new-animation