Smallest Dinosaur's Bones Identified; Looked Like A "Roadrunner On Steroids" (PHOTOS)

LOS ANGELES -- Fossil bones housed at a Los Angeles museum belong to the smallest dinosaur discovered in North America, scientists said Tuesday.

The newly identified creature weighed less than two pounds and stood about 4 inches tall. From head to tail, it measured a little over 2 feet long, said Luis Chiappe, director of the Dinosaur Institute of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County where the fossil bones are stored.

The dinosaur "would have looked like a roadrunner on steroids," Chiappe said.

It likely ate plants and hunted bugs during the late Jurassic period, about 150 million years ago. It was so tiny and fast that it probably darted between the legs of larger dinosaurs, researchers said.

• • • A model of Fruitadens haagarorum, described as the smallest species of dinosaur ever discovered in North America, is seen next to a skull of a much larger Carnotaurus, at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County in Los Angeles Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2009. The newly identified creature weighed less than two pounds (900 grams) and stood about 4 inches (10 centimeters) tall. From head to tail, it measured a little over 2 feet (60 centimeters) long, said Luis Chiappe, director of the museum.

Bones of four individuals -- including skull, arm and leg fragments -- were discovered three decades ago in Fruita in western Colorado and kept at the museum.

Chiappe and an international team recently identified and named it Fruitadens haagarorum, which incorporates where the bones were found and the name of the president of the museum's board of trustees, Paul Haaga.

A description of their work appears Wednesday in the British journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

Earlier this year, Canadian researchers reported that a chicken-sized dinosaur weighing in at 4-to-5 pounds was the smallest meat-eating dinosaur yet discovered in North America.

Comments

[loki]

I lost a lot of faith in palaeontologist and those who report the findings after a few years back when the so called missing link between bird and dinosaur was discovered in China. Even NG had it on the front cover. About a year later it was found to be a hoax. Found pieces pieced together to make it look like something it wasnt. Even NG had an apology issue explaining how they were duped.
Then, about 5 years later, the same thing appears, but this time its hailed as the real thing, and no mention of the hoax of the past.
Consider palaeontologist are a lot like the other university departments that depend on grants and funding to survive, they are not above releasing less than honest information to keep the cash flowing, like many University departments have done in the past, and still do. Id like to see more backing it up before Im going to bite this time.

[MiddleRoadLiberal]

God designed all animals. Some he just designed to fail.

[loki]

Oh, you mean to fail like republicans?

[revhatchell]

santa clause helped, too.

hail eris!

[PWM]

How could the perfect mind of God, incapable of an imperfect thought, come up with an imperfect design?

[zola77]

New designer pets?

[loki]

watch spykids 2

[LMPE]

Roadrunner on steroids. Wile E. Coyote had better call up the Acme Factory and order their most destructive contraption!

[JR Jake]

Roadrunner on steroids, huh, until it latches onto your Achille's tendon and cripples you; than watch out. Don't know much about that little critter but wouldn't want to try and house break it.

[Acleacius]

Maybe this is the one the Intelligent design people believe humans had as pets 6000 years ago. :)

[loki]

a while back a priest at saint Louis University proclaimed that God had put dinosaurs on earth to confuse man and lead him astray on trying to find out where we came from.