The littlest dino Researchers announced today the discovery of what's very probably the smallest dinosaur yet found. It's an extinct dinosaur about the size of the littlest hummingbirds. "The fact that this specimen and bee hummingbirds are really close in size does strongly suggest that this is the limit in body size" for birds and birdlike dinosaurs, said study author Jingmai O'Connor, who studies the evolution of early birds at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing. The dinosaur, Oculudentavis khaungraae, manages to pack a whole lot of strangeness into its exceptionally tiny skull — in fact, more than I could mention in today's 800-word news story. Here's one bonus oddity: Oculudentavis has what researchers call a "scleral ring" in its eye socket. That's a circle of 14 scoop-shape bones (they look kind of like the wooden spoons that come packaged with single-serve ice cream cups). This feature, more closely associated with lizards than birds or other dinosaurs, is a result of the strange ways miniaturization warps anatomy, the scientists suggested. |
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