Müzede Yeni Dinozor Türü Keşfedildi: 3 Seviyede İngilizce Haber

Scientists in the UK have found a new dinosaur. But the fossil was not new. It sat in a museum drawer for almost 100 years.

The fossil is a small piece of a skull. A man called Reginald Hooley found it. He found it on the Isle of Wight, in the south of England. He found more than 1,000 fossils in his life. After he died, the Natural History Museum in London got them. That was in 1924. Then nobody studied this skull for a very long time.

Recently, scientists from UCL and the museum looked at it again. They made a 3D model of the skull with a special machine. They saw that it was a new species. Its name is Invictibellatrix amberina.

The dinosaur lived about 120 million years ago. It walked on two legs and ate meat. It was 3 to 4 metres long. It was about as tall as a person. It probably had feathers and long claws.

It ate small animals. It was not the biggest hunter of its time. But one scientist said something surprising. For people, it was more dangerous than T. rex. A person was the right size for its dinner.

For almost a century, a small piece of dinosaur skull sat in a drawer at the Natural History Museum in London. Nobody paid much attention to it. Now, according to the museum, scientists have shown that it belongs to a new species of meat-eating dinosaur, called Invictibellatrix amberina.

The fossil was found by Reginald Walter Hooley, an amateur fossil hunter, at the bottom of a cliff on the Isle of Wight, off the south coast of England. He collected more than 1,000 specimens, and the museum acquired them after his death, in 1924. However, this skull piece was overlooked for nearly 100 years.

Recently, a team led by Dr Cassius Morrison of UCL decided to look into it. They CT-scanned the fossil and built a 3D model of the skull and of the space where the brain once was. An oval hole and an hourglass-shaped crest showed that it was something new. As a result, the dinosaur got its own name. The study came out in the journal Royal Society Open Science on 14 October.

The dinosaur lived about 120 million years ago. Based on its closest relatives, it was probably 3 to 4 metres long and about as tall as a human. It walked on two legs, probably had feathers and hunted small dinosaurs, lizards and mammals with its long, curved claws. Although it was not the top predator of its time, Morrison said it would have been more dangerous to humans than T. rex, because a person would have been the right size of prey.

It is also the first dinosaur of its group, the megaraptorans, ever found in Europe.

For nearly a hundred years, one of Britain's more remarkable dinosaurs was hiding in plain sight. A fragment from the back of a skull, acquired by the Natural History Museum in London in 1924, spent the following century gathering dust in a drawer. According to the museum, researchers have now identified it as an entirely new species of meat-eating dinosaur, which they have named Invictibellatrix amberina.

The specimen was originally unearthed by Reginald Walter Hooley, an amateur palaeontologist, at the foot of a cliff on the south-west coast of the Isle of Wight. His collection, numbering more than 1,000 specimens, passed to the museum after his death, yet this particular piece was never properly examined.

That changed when a team led by Dr Cassius Morrison of UCL, together with his PhD student Charlie Scherer and the museum's Professor Paul Barrett, decided to take a closer look. By CT-scanning the fossil, they produced a 3D model of the skull fragment and of the cavity that once held the brain. Two features proved decisive: an oval opening where the spinal cord met the brain, and a crest shaped like an hourglass. The findings were published in the journal Royal Society Open Science on 14 October.

Judging by its closest relatives, the animal measured 3 to 4 metres in length and stood just over 1.5 metres tall, roughly the height of a person. It was probably feathered and armed with claws that may have reached 10 to 20 centimetres. Some 120 million years ago, it stalked a floodplain that alternated between wet and dry seasons, preying on small dinosaurs, lizards and mammals. Morrison likens its role to that of a modern hyena: hardly the top predator, but, as he points out, more of a threat to humans than T. rex, since a person would have been just the right size of prey.

Perhaps most significantly, it is the first megaraptoran ever found in Europe. It offers the first evidence that this group passed through the continent on its way from Asia to the southern lands, where some of its members later grew enormous.