WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Illuminating a mysterious epoch in the age of dinosaurs, scientists said Monday they had unearthed two new species in New Mexico, including a bizarre one that sprang from the same lineage as super carnivore Tyrannosaurus rex but was content to eat plants.
The two dinosaurs -- the weird, sloth-like Nothronychus and a small carnivore from the coelurosaur family that has not yet been named -- lived 90 million years ago in a swampy forest similar to the bayous of Louisiana, said paleontologists Jim Kirkland and Doug Wolfe, who announced the discovery.
Both dinosaurs had bird-like characteristics and both probably were covered with feathers, the scientists said. They were found about a half mile apart near New Mexico's border with Arizona in an area dubbed the Zuni Basin, which had been just a few miles (km) from the shores of a sea 1,000 miles wide that split North America.
At that time -- the middle of the Cretaceous period of the Mesozoic era -- Earth was in the throes of extreme global warming that melted the polar ice caps, raised ocean levels 1,000 feet (300 meters) higher than they are currently and reduced the amount of dry land on the planet.
Almost no dinosaur fossils have been found from that time, particularly in North America.
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The two dinosaurs -- the weird, sloth-like Nothronychus and a small carnivore from the coelurosaur family that has not yet been named -- lived 90 million years ago in a swampy forest similar to the bayous of Louisiana, said paleontologists Jim Kirkland and Doug Wolfe, who announced the discovery.
Both dinosaurs had bird-like characteristics and both probably were covered with feathers, the scientists said. They were found about a half mile apart near New Mexico's border with Arizona in an area dubbed the Zuni Basin, which had been just a few miles (km) from the shores of a sea 1,000 miles wide that split North America.
At that time -- the middle of the Cretaceous period of the Mesozoic era -- Earth was in the throes of extreme global warming that melted the polar ice caps, raised ocean levels 1,000 feet (300 meters) higher than they are currently and reduced the amount of dry land on the planet.
Almost no dinosaur fossils have been found from that time, particularly in North America.
Want to know more?
------------------
"I suspect that many an ailurophobe hates cats only because he feels they are better people than he is; more honest, more secure, more loved, more whatever he is not."
--Winifred Carriere