Paleontologists in Alberta have discovered a small, chicken-sized dinosaur thought to be the smallest ever found in North America.
The Albertonykus borealis is believed to have lived like an anteater, using strong claws to rip apart logs for insects as food. Similar to species found previously in Mongolia and Montana, its discovery in bone-rich Alberta is outlined in a study released last month.
“Their structure is so bizarre, that we're trying to find out what they did, how they lived,” said University of Calgary paleontologist Nick Longrich, one of the study's two co-authors.
The process began in 2002, when Phil Currie, a leading paleontologist and the mind behind Alberta's Royal Tyrrell Museum, was excavating a bone bed in Dry Island Buffalo Jump Provincial Park. Mr. Currie's team was searching for Albertosaurus, but dug up and filed away hundreds of bones.
“In the process of digging those bones up, they found these really little elements. And no one knew what they were,” Mr. Longrich remembers.
While searching through the bones for another project, Mr. Longrich recognized a claw as one similar to another small dinosaur only found in Mongolia. Some evidence of a similar type had also been found in Montana, but had never seen Alberta.
And so, Mr. Longrich's quest began three years ago, to piece together enough of the small creature thought to have lived 70 million years ago.
“I just combed those drawers, went through one after the other, picking out whatever I can,” Mr. Longrich remembers. “It took a while to really figure out what everything was in there.”
After two years, he'd put together the Albertonykus borealis. It'd have been about the weight of a chicken, standing on two legs with a long tail and “anteater-like claws,” Mr. Longrich said. The arms were too short to burrow, but quite strong, leading Mr. Longrich and Mr. Currie, his co-author, to believe it was used to rip apart things such as logs. In the press release, Mr. Longrich likened the Albertonykus borealis to something out of a Dr. Seuss tale.
Mr. Longrich said such discoveries, made with existing bone stock, are increasingly common as crews uncover more and more deposits.
“The number of dinosaur discoveries is actually accelerating because we just keep digging up more material to work with,” he said.
