Dinosaurs

Recently, scientists discovered a new species of dinosaurs, which they claim to be the oldest carnivorous dinosaur found in the U.K. It is a small sized (about the size of a chicken) Tyrannosaurus Rex, which is called Pendraig Milnerae. According to an article made on Wednesday in the journal of Royal Society Open Science, Pendraig Milnerae is described as a “new small-sized coelophysoid theropod form the Late Triassic of Wales that was believed to have roamed the U.K. over 200 million years ago.”Theropods have hollow bones and three toed feet, they are two legged carnivores just like the T. Rex itself. The other fossilized remains of the Pendraig Milnerae were dug up in the 1950s in a Welsh town, in Old Welsh Pendraig actually means “chief dragon”.

At the start, scientists mistook the fossils for already identified ones from a creature known as the Syntarsus. According to the Natural History Museum in London, there was a re-identification of many Syntarsus dinosaurs, which demanded a new look at forgotten Welsh fossils. It was stated by study author Stephan Speikman: "There is no obvious character that set this species apart. It has a certain combination of several characters that are unique amongst its group, which showed to us it was clearly a new species.”. Scientists don’t know why the fossils are so small, they think in part because of the dwarfism effect in the fossils of some island-dwelling creatures.

The Pendraig Milner is named after an expert in the paleontology field named Amanda Milner, who was a pioneering figure at the Natural History Museum and unfortunately passed in August.

Milner played a great role in helping to relocate the specimens, who were thought to be long lost. Senior paleontology researcher and expert Susannah Maidment stated:

“She found it in a drawer of crocodile material, and she must have had the specimen in her mind’s eye from when she had previously looked through it. This paper would not have been possible without her.”