The last few years have yielded some truly bizarre dinosaur discoveries . Fromrhino - like animalswith massive heads and stubby spine , tobeaked mishmashesof every dinosaur in the book , there ’s been a cavalcade of unbelievable additions . But perhaps none of these quite measure up to the inexorable foreignness of a newly - discovered species of dinosaur that lived in the Cretaceous period of Mongolia some 75 million years ago .
Behold Halszkaraptor escuilliei , which look like a duck , walked like a duck , and was amphibious like a duck’s egg , but was a member of the infamously predatory and venomous phratry of fleet - footed raptor . equip with absolved adaptations for a life spend part - meter in the piss , Halszkaraptor ( prounounced “ halls - ka - raptor ” ) represents the first and only known non - avian theropod dinosaur ( a group of biped predators that include T. king and shut birds ( avians ) ) to be so at home in the piddle .
While bird have savour a solid presence between land , air , and ocean over their organic evolution , non - avian dinosaur in general were ground - lubbing creature . As more fossils and information comes to brightness level , our understanding of their diverse ecology has made room for some caution . But — for illustration — wholly aquatic non - avian dinosaur are n’t a thing . It ’s also debatable that any non - avian dinosaur ever took up power flight of steps — thoughthe four - winged Microraptormight be a contender . This is why Halszkaraptor and its patent suite of adaptation specifically for swim and paddle enlace with a body plan uproariously originate from a filiation known for doing just not that is such an revolutionary discovery .
The exceptionally complete dodo of Halszkaraptor — described ina paper published today in the journal Nature — is primitively from Ukhaa Tolgod , Mongolia , but the team of scientist responsible for its description in the scientific literature did not discover it there . The fogey was at some item lawlessly poached from its productive paleontological web site , and float between individual assemblage outside of the body politic for years before being acquired and handed over to paleontologists in 2015 for report and rejoin to Mongolia .
Because the fogy was tenuous , profoundly embedded within a rock slab , and one of a kind , the international squad of researchers used a mellow - tech method of image and reconstructing Halszkaraptor ’s skeleton in the cupboard in three dimensions . At France ’s European Synchotron Radiation Facility , they used a high - powered , highly - sore type of X - ray scanning — synchrotron multi - resolution X - ray microtomography — to see and articulate all the internal detail of the specimen in the rock without even tinct it . This allowed the investigator to confirm that the strange dodo was n’t a lead astray amalgamation of multiple dinosaur species , and figure out the animal ’s anatomy down to very fine scales .
What they found was a dromeosaurid — a “ running lounge lizard ” in the same family as Velociraptor and the much largerUtahraptor — but it was unlike any know raptor . Halszkaraptor was different enough from its bod - rending cousins that the researchers gave it its own coinage , genus , and a new subfamily ( Halszkaraptorinae ) . The small dinosaur — roughly the size of a mallard duck , appropriately enough — has many of the features found in its fellow raptors : reaping hook - claws on the feet , a long , sturdy tail , and a slender , athletic frame . But Halszkaraptor has a battery of gadget characteristic more akin to modern waterfowl and other aquatic animals than to theropod dinosaurs .
feature of its skull suggest it spent prison term in the piss , quest after and eating fish . Halszkaraptor had a tenacious , sparse snout full of shortsighted , prickly tooth absolutely suit for holding onto squirm Pisces the Fishes . Like crocodile , Halszkaraptor ’s fossil have got evidence of a highly - developed mesh of sensory organ in the os of the snout , suggesting it move after pee - based prey . The head was rest on an remarkably long , flexible , swan - like neck , which had features in the vertebra only previously see in water bird and some species of aquatic , long - necked turtleneck . It ’s potential Halszkaraptor snatch up fish like a Phalacrocorax carbo or Hero of Alexandria — with rapid , ambush strike of its hypermobile head and neck opening .
Accessing these fish would have been made easy by the rest of Halszkaraptor ’s swimming - prim out body . It ’s front arm were strikingly paddle - like , and analysis of their balance and the chest of drawers area showed closer similarities between Halszkaraptor and offstage - propel birds like penguins than with other theropod dinosaur , intimate the dinosaur “ fly ” through the water by using its arms . Halszkaraptor ’s articulatio coxae and legs were also oriented more forward , shifting the center of gravity forward and render it an severally evolve waterbird - similar posture : vertical and prostrate to waddling . This configuration could have helped hip extension during swim .
In life , Halszkaraptor would have looked like a cockeyed coalition of a Velociraptor and a goof — which , given thesterling reputationof cuckoo , would likely just make the Velociraptor twice as terrifying , really . The toddling oddment would have appear far removed from any typical bird of prey , an fauna that can be summed up as an badly - tempered nautical mile of feather and razor conducting wire .
Halszkaraptor is the only non - avian dinosaur to have dual locomotory modes where one way of get around is spank with the weapons system . The massive canvass - plump for Spinosaurus wasrevealed latterly to be likely semi - aquatic — with its dense bones and eel - comparable swim capabilities — though even it did n’t have whole member used as paddle . Halszkaraptor express us there ’s still much to get word about how dinosaurs navigated their surround , the diversity of their specialisation , and the parts they played in the local ecology . Before the find of Halszkaraptor , the entire idea of small , waterbird - like theropod track down down fish was some mix of inconceivable or high-risk fiction ( Halszkaraptor is eerily similar to thepouchin Dougal Dixon’sThe New Dinosaurs , which imagines an alternate timeline in which the non - avian dinosaur never hold out out ) .
But Halszkaraptor is very real , very informative , and very damn weird , and while it would be endlessly amusing to see an USA ofquackingDanger Swanswaddling after Chris Prattin the next installment of Jurassic World , these singular ducks do n’t seem like they ’d make the cut .
Jake Buehleris a Seattle area science writer with an latria for the Tree of Life ’s weird , wild , and unknown — follow him onTwitteror at hisblog .
dinosaursPaleontologyScience
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