[CNN] – Canadian researchers say they have discovered the smallest known North American dinosaur, a carnivore that roamed areas of the continent 75 million years ago and weighed less than most modern-day house cats. Nick Longrich found the dinosaur’s bones in storage at a museum and decided to analyze them.
Hesperonychus elizabethae, a 4.4 pound creature with razor-like claws, ran through the swamps and forests of southeastern Alberta, Canada, during the late Cretaceous period, the researchers said. The diminutive dinosaur likely hunted insects, small mammals and other prey, perhaps even baby dinosaurs, said Nick Longrich, a paleontology research associate in the University of Calgary’s Department of Biological Sciences. "It’s basically a predator of small things," Longrich said…
Although fossilized remains of Hesperonychus were collected in 1982, they remained unstudied until Longrich came across them in the University of Alberta’s collection in 2007, the university said. Because of their size, some of the fossilized parts had been thought to be from juveniles. Longrich said he suspected the claws had come from another, smaller adult species, but said finding a fossilized pelvis in which the hip bones were fused – which happens only once an animal is fully grown – convinced him…
Longrich came across the dinosaur’s bones in storage at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller and decided to analyze them, Canadian Broadcasting Company reported in September…
This dinosaur is certainly more interesting than what is going on in the news. I think that if you or anybody who reads your site read the book by Jane Mayer’s book “The Dark Side” you would be screaming for justice in the Obama Administration.