Today, a team of Chinese and foreign scientists announced in Beijing that they have discovered a new species of monitor lizard in Fengning, Hebei Province, which is of great significance for us to understand the evolution of dinosaurs. The research was led by Associate Professor Xing Lida of China Geo University, with the participation of Niu Kecheng, Executive Director of Liang Ying Stone Natural History Museum, Dr. Xia Zheren of the University of Chicago, a famous paleontologist and Academician Philip Currie of university of alberta. The research paper was published in the Cretaceous Research of Elsevier Publishing Group.
As we know, not all members of the dinosaur family are big, and the beautiful jaw dragon is a very small one. If you add a long tail to a featherless chicken, add teeth to its mouth and turn the front end of its wings into tiny claws, it will look like a beautiful jaw dragon. Because its body structure is so bird-like, when archaeopteryx skeleton fossils were first discovered, people thought it was a beautiful jaw dragon.
For a long time, sauropod has been regarded as a typical collection of small theropod dinosaurs, including the historical sauropod and the Chinese bird dragon, which are scattered. Most of the confirmed members of this branch are found in Jurassic strata on the island of Sorenhofen Group in Germany and Yixian Formation of Lower Cretaceous in western Liaoning, China. The most typical representative of the former is the beautiful jaw dragon discovered in 1859. It belongs to a relatively primitive small theropod, but it is as big as a hen, and the length behind it accounts for half of its length. They are slim, with narrow jaws and necks. In addition to Europe, a large number of sauropods have also been found in the Jehol biota in western Liaoning, China, among which the most famous sauropods were found in 1996. It is the first hairy dinosaur discovered by human beings, and its discovery strongly proves the hypothesis that birds evolved from dinosaurs.
Xing Lida's team described a new species-Liang Yingmenglong, whose age is between the above two main fossil production strata, and it is located in Huajiying Formation in North China. The quick expression of the genus name is that this little dinosaur moves quickly and has a fierce temperament. The name Liang Ying is a tribute to Liang Yingshitou Natural History Museum, which collects specimens.
Raptor, some friends may be familiar with the name Raptor. Isn't this the raptor in the dinosaur movie Jurassic Park? Yes, but ah, the dinosaur in the movie should actually be called Raptors. Its Latin scientific name is Velociraptor, which means agile robber/raptor. In Chinese, agile singer means agile and agile, so China's famous singer Raptor is very suitable for it and has been widely recognized by the scientific and popular science circles. If you call it a raptor, it only turns into agility, ignoring the robber/raptor. Then, since the name Raptor is no longer used, it can be used to name new dinosaurs.
The difference between Liang Yingxun Raptors and other Megagnathus lies in the unique bone shape, the phalanx IV-4 is longer than IV-3, and the unique combination of posterior skull features, including the extra-long calf. In phylogenetic analysis, Liang Yingmeng is nested between Rehe and Sorenhofen taxa, which is an important supplement to the diversity of known clades and taxa. Stratigraphically, Liang Yingxun Raptors are the earliest and smallest species in Asia.
Liang Yingxun Raptor is a small carnivorous dinosaur that lived in the early Cretaceous. Its fossil is incomplete and its head is gone. But it can be inferred from similar dinosaurs that its total length is about 60 cm, its neck is slender and flexible, and it has a light skull on it. The teeth in its mouth are small but very sharp, and the edges are curved, which is a deadly weapon for smaller animals. In addition, thanks to its big eyes, Liang Yingmeng has a keen eye, which further enhances its hunting ability. In addition, Liang Yingmeng's hind legs are strong and slender, which enables it to suddenly accelerate to catch small animals running at amazing speed. Even those flying insects or running lizards are in danger when Liang Yingmeng catches prey. Beautiful jaw dragons can stretch out their long necks to catch them and crush them with their teeth.
There are still doubts about the habitat preference and diversity pattern of Megalodon dinosaurs in the scientific community, but the raptors of Liang Yingxun provide us with two broader possibilities or evidences: According to the diversity of anti-bird assemblages proposed before, Huajiying Formation may have preserved the oldest fauna in the Jehol biota in the early Cretaceous, which is different from the Daohugou biota in the late Jurassic and the Yixian Formation that produced other Megalodon sharks. Liang Yingmeng can be used as a useful calibration point for reconstructing biogeography and stratigraphic models, and estimating the allometric growth trend of Megalodon.
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