New 'Pharaoh’s chicken from Hell' species busts long-held myths about dinosaurs

In arecent research, palaeontologists have come across a new species of dinosaurs, which suggests that dinosaurs were not going extinct during the end of the Cretaceous period. This dinosaur species weighed around 78 kilogrammes and walked the US midwest region.

The new species of dinosaur Eoneophron infernalis, nicknamed “Pharaoh’s chicken from Hell” by the scientists, and its fossil was recovered from South Dakota.

Earlier, many researchers believed that by the end of the Cretaceous period (a geological period that started about 145 million years ago), all the dinosaur species were declining in large numbers. And an asteroid that struck the Gulf of Mexico was the final blow to an already vulnerable group of animals. But the recent discovery of a new dinosaur fossil tells an altogetherdifferent story, as per a report published in Down to Earth.

Fossils of new ‘birdlike’ dinosaurs give new details on their extinction

The fossils recovered from the rocks of the Hell Creek Formation in South Dakota were a group of four hindlimb bones- a femur, a tibia and two metatarsals. These fossils date back to the last 2 million years of the Cretaceous.

When the fossils were first identified by the team, they grouped them into the family of caenagnathids- a group of birdlike dinosaurs that had toothless beaks, long legs and short tails. Further, the fossil evidence also revealed that these dinosaurs had complex feathers, much like modern-day birds.

Earlier, the only species known from this group from this particular time and region was Anzu, sometimes called the “chicken from Hell”. It was covered in feathers and had a toothless beak, weighing around 450-750 pounds (200-340 kgs).

The new fossil specimen, at first, seemed like Anzu’s younger one or juvenile. But after chalking out its entire astronomical differences, the scientists came to a conclusion that it wasnot the juvenile of Anzu.

The team cut through the middle of three of the bones to examine the specimen microscopically and found out that lines at the cross section were spaced progressively closer together, indicating that this animal’s growth had been slowed down as it is nearly an adult.

With this, the team concluded that this new species Eoneophron infernalis or “Pharaoh’s chicken from Hell” is entirely a new species.

The team from Down to Earth also noted that the new “discovery suggests that this dinosaur group was not declining in diversity at the very end of the Cretaceous. These fossils show that there are still new species to be discovered and support the idea that at least part of the pattern of decreasing diversity is the result of sampling and preservation biases.”

(With inputs from agencies)