New Species of Meat-Eating Dinosaur Unearthed in China

Fossil remains found in 2006 by a George Washington University biologist in northwestern China have now been classified as a new species of small theropod, or meat-eating, dinosaur.

The discovery was made by James Clark, whom, along with one of his doctoral students and an international group of other researchers, unearthed the dinosaur specimen in a remote area of the country's northwest Xinjiang Region.

In a research paper published by the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology,  Clark and Jonah Choiniere, the then- student who has since earned his degree, explain the new theropod was an estimated 1 meter, or, just over 3 feet long, and likely weighed about 3 pounds. The research team recovered the creature's skull, mandible and partial skeleton.

"All that was exposed on the surface was a bit of the leg," said Clark. "We were pleasantly surprised to find a skull buried in the rock too."

The dinosaur --- named Aorun zhaoi after the Dragon King in the Chinese epic tale, "Journey to the West" ---- wasn't necessarily a small dinosaur species; Clark and his colleagues have concluded then remains they found were that of a young Aorun.

"We were able to look at microscopic details of Aorun's bones and they showed that the animal was less than a year old when it died on the banks of a stream," said Choiniere, now a senior researcher at the Evolutionary Studies Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Aorun lived more than 161 million years ago, during the start of the Late Jurassic Period.

Its small, numerous teeth suggest that it would have eaten prey such as lizards and small relatives of today's mammals and crocodilians.

Aorun was the fifth new theropod discovered in the same area of China by the team co-led by Clark and Dr. Xu Xing of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation's Division of Earth Sciences and the Chinese National Natural Science Foundation.