A chance discovery by a volunteer dinosaur digger has unearthed an unusual toothless dinosaur, known as an elaphrosaur, that roamed Australia 110 million years ago.
The elaphrosaur was a member of the theropod family of dinosaurs that included all of the predatory species. It stood about the height of a small emu, measuring 2m from its head to the end of a long tail, and had short arms, each ending in four fingers.
Stephen Poropat, the lead researcher behind the find, at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, said elaphrosaurs were “really rare,” with just three named species from Tanzania, China and Argentina. “This is the first record of the group in Australia, and only the second Cretaceous record worldwide.”
“These are some of the most puzzling theropod dinosaurs, as they are known from such few fossils,” said Steve Brusatte, a palaeontologist at the University of Edinburgh, who was not involved in the research. “They seem to have been lightly built, fast-running, long-necked theropods which traded the carnivorous diet of their ancestors and become omnivores.”