New Dinosaur Discovered

In Romania some exciting dinosaur bones have been discovered which are thought to be those of a  dinosaur similar to the Velociraptor. Bones from a dinosaur of this type have never been discovered before. The dinosaur would have lived 70 million years ago and has been named Balaur bondoc which means stocky dragon, due to the way that scientists thing that he looked.

The dinosaur had two large sharp claws on each foot, which are twice as many as the velociraptors’ one. It is felt that these claws would have been used to rip apart prey.

It is thought that he would have been about 2 meters high, which is taller than the velociraptor. Other features that it had are the claw extending from the big toe as well as one from the second toe. It had short and stocky legs and feed with the pelvis having a huge amount of muscle. All of these things indicate that it would not have been very fast but extremely strong. As some of the bones in the hands are fused together, it would not have been able to grasp things very well and therefore would not make much use of them. It was therefore not a runner like the velociraptor was thought to be.

However, there are still many unanswered questions such as the type of food that the dinosaur ate and how it actually hunted for its prey. It is also similar to feathered dinosaurs whose remains have been found in this area and so it may be a possibility that it was related to those as well as to the velociraptors.

The skeleton that was found included a leg, hip, hand, arms, rib, tail and backbone. The details of this amazing find have been reported in the journal – proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.