Enigmacursor mollyborthwickae: New species of dog-sized dinosaur discovered
Experts have discovered a new small species of dinosaur.It has been named Enigmacursor mollyborthwickae, and scientists say it lived around 150 million years ago, during the late Jurassic period.It roamed around what is now North America, running around the feet of famous giants like the Stegosaurus.It will now become the first new dinosaur to go on display at London's Natural History Museum in more than ten years.
What did experts discover about the new dinosaur?
The small dinosaur was found in America's Morrison Formation, in the western United States - which has previously produced some of the world's most famous dinosaurs, including the Stegosaurus and Allosaurus.When it was first discovered, it was wrongly categorised as a Nanosaurus but scientists have now worked out it is a different animal.Its new name, Enigmacursor, means 'puzzling runner' - and palaeontologists think it was the size of a labrador dog.According to experts, it stood 64 cm tall and 180 cm long but with much bigger feet and a tail that was "probably longer than the rest of the dinosaur." The fossilised remains are the most complete of any in the world for early small dinosaurs.Traditionally, big dinosaur bones have been the biggest prize, so there has been less interest in digging out smaller fossils.Palaeontologists hope that this new discovery could help them understand the diversity of dinosaurs in the Late Jurassic period.
Professor Susannah Maidment, from the Natural History Museum, said the new species could be the first of many small dinosaurs to be found in western USA."While the Morrison Formation has been well-known for a long time, most of the focus has been on searching for the biggest and most impressive dinosaurs."She added: "Smaller dinosaurs are often left behind, meaning there are probably many still in the ground."Enigmacursor shows that there's still plenty to discover in even this well-studied region."The new dino will now go on permanent display at London's Natural History Museum.
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Although remains of these mysterious early humans have mostly been discovered at the Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains in Siberia, DNA analysis has shown the ancient people were widespread across Asia. Scientists were able to analyse DNA from a tooth and from a finger bone excavated in the Denisova cave in southern Siberia. The discovery was described as 'nothing short of sensational.' In 2020, scientists reported Denisovan DNA in the Baishiya Karst Cave in Tibet. This discovery marked the first time Denisovan DNA had been recovered from a location that is outside Denisova Cave. How widespread were they? Researchers are now beginning to find out just how big a part they played in our history. DNA from these early humans has been found in the genomes of modern humans over a wide area of Asia, suggesting they once covered a vast range. They are thought to have been a sister species of the Neanderthals, who lived in western Asia and Europe at around the same time. The two species appear to have separated from a common ancestor around 200,000 years ago, while they split from the modern human Homo sapien lineage around 600,000 years ago. Last year researchers even claimed they could have been the first to reach Australia. Aboriginal people in Australia contain both Neanderthal DNA, as do most humans, and Denisovan DNA. This latter genetic trace is present in Aboriginal people at the present day in much greater quantities than any other people around the world. How advanced were they? Bone and ivory beads found in the Denisova Cave were discovered in the same sediment layers as the Denisovan fossils, leading to suggestions they had sophisticated tools and jewellery. Professor Chris Stringer, an anthropologist at the Natural History Museum in London, said: 'Layer 11 in the cave contained a Denisovan girl's fingerbone near the bottom but worked bone and ivory artefacts higher up, suggesting that the Denisovans could have made the kind of tools normally associated with modern humans. 'However, direct dating work by the Oxford Radiocarbon Unit reported at the ESHE meeting suggests the Denisovan fossil is more than 50,000 years old, while the oldest 'advanced' artefacts are about 45,000 years old, a date which matches the appearance of modern humans elsewhere in Siberia.' Did they breed with other species? Yes. Today, around 5 per cent of the DNA of some Australasians – particularly people from Papua New Guinea – is Denisovans. Now, researchers have found two distinct modern human genomes - one from Oceania and another from East Asia - both have distinct Denisovan ancestry. The genomes are also completely different, suggesting there were at least two separate waves of prehistoric intermingling between 200,000 and 50,000 years ago. But what they did not expect to find was individuals from East Asia carry a uniquely different type.
