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Chilesaurus diegosuarezi

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Description

Named by Fernando Novas and colleagues, 2015
Diet: Herbivore
Length: 10. 5 feet (3.2 meters)
Weight: 200-300 lb
Region: Chile (Toqui formation) 
Age: 150-145 million BC (Tithonian stage of the Late Jurassic)

This may look like your basic dinosaur, but to paleontologists, this unusual animal is considered a dinosaurian equivalent of a platypus. Why? Because it boosted a weird mix of traits  seen on various, different types of dinosaurs that all roll into one animal. 

The nearly complete remains of this dinosaur was found in Aysen, Chile in 2004 by 7-year-old Diego Suarez, the son of Chilean geologists Manuel and Rita de la Cruz, who were studying the Chilean rocks while he and his sister, Macarena were looking for decorative stones. 

Since then, more than 10 individual specimens, including four complete skeletons (ranging from turkey-sized to 10-footer), were uncovered by Chilean and Argentinean paleontologists, but, however, this was thought to be a fake dinosaur as they assumed that they belonged to several different dinosaur species, due to its unusual traits.

But later on, scientists looked more closely at the remains and realized that the skeletons likely represented into one, new species. 

The so-called 'jigsaw puzzle' dinosaur as what scientists dubbed was a biped, walking on its two, robust hindlegs like the theropods and it also had a vertebrae and illium (the large, upper part of the pelvic bone) similar to theropods. But unlike most theropods who had sharp claws, it had two blunted fingers for hands. But its small head, a long neck, and large, four-toed, clunky feet were like those of primitive sauropodomorphs. It also had a horny beak and pubic bones jutting backwards like those in  ornithischia (bird-hipped) dinosaurs. 

These traits of unrelated animals are an example of convergent evolution, when organisms unrelated evolve certain traits independently, due to having to contend similar conditions, not common ancestry. 

In 2015, Argentinean paleontologist, Fernando Novas and his colleagues named and described the unusual animal, Chilesaurus diegosuarezi, in honor of the area it was found, while its  specific name honors Diego Suarez who found it. It was the first complete nonavian dinosaur from the Jurassic ever found in Chile.

Living in what is now Chile at the end of the Jurassic period, Chilesaurus shared the landscape with ancient crocodylimorphs and large diplodocids and titanosaurian sauropods whose fossil remains were also found in the same area. Its legs were more designed to walk, instead of running. Its horny beak and a mouth full of leaf-shaped teeth meant that this dinosaur was herbivorous, feeding on the vegetation. Novas and the researchers believed that the pubic bones rotated backwards backward through evolutionary time to allow Chilesaurus more room in its gut to digest the plant material. 

Analysis suggests that Chilesaurus is a basal most member of the tetanurae clade in the theropod group, which is quite strange for being a plant-eater. 

When we think of theropod dinosaurs, we generally think of them as vicious, meat-eaters such as Tyrannosaurus, Allosaurus, Spinosaurus, Carnotaurus, and Velociraptor. But evidence shows that some members of the theropods were omnivorous, while others, like the bizarre therizinosaurs, the asian ceratosaur Limusaurus, and Chilesaurus itself were herbivores.

Its long thought that herbivorous theropods were known only in close relatives of modern bird (maniraptoria), but the discovery of Chilesaurus shows that a herbivorous diet was acquired much earlier than previously thought.  

Not only was Chilesaurus the first complete nonavian dinosaur from the Jurassic ever found in Chile, it was also the first herbivorous theropods ever found south of the equator and one of the most complete and anatomically correct documented theropod dinosaurs from the southern hemisphere. 

To paleontologists, this shows that dinosaurs across theropods, sauropodomorphs, and even ornithischians tend to follow the same rules in changing their bodies through time.

Note: Based on media.vocativ.com/photos/2015/…. Coloration inspired by guanaco, also living in Chile. The feathery coat around the body, except tail like Kulindadromeus is inspired by dinobirdman.deviantart.com/
  
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DinoBirdMan's avatar
Why thank you very much for Mentioned me and my drawing also. :)