Vegetarian T-Rex-Like Dinosaur Discovered by 7-Year-Old Boy

According to a new article published in the science journal Nature, meat-eating dinosaurs in the theropod family (Carnotaurus, Velociraptor, and Tyrannosaurus Rex) had a vegetarian relative. Dubbed Chilesaurus diegosuarezi in honor of seven-year-old Diego Suárez—who found its fossilized skeleton in Chile—paleontologists have nicknamed the extinct animal “The Platypus” because its anatomy is an unusual mashup of features found in carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores. For example, Chilesaurus had a long neck and horn-beaked mouth for chewing leaves from treetops, but also short forelimbs like a T-Rex. Palaeontographical Society president Paul Barrett said Chilesaurus “ranks as one of the most interesting new dinosaur discoveries of the past 20–30 years.”