A “NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN” dinosaur that dates back 150 million years has been revealed – and is now on show in the heart of London.
The speedy creature would’ve dodged 32ft flesh-eating giants and even crocodiles to survive in prehistoric USA, scientists told The Sun.
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Officially named Enigmacursor mollyborthwickae, the two-legged sprinter is available for free public viewing at the Natural History Museum from Thursday, June 26.
The metre-long creature’s fossilised skeleton is remarkably well-preserved, stretching over a metre long (3.2ft) – and about 50cm (1.6ft) tall.
Visitors will be able to get up close to the early American creature, which lived alongside iconic dinos like Diplodocus and Stegosaurus.
“What we’re dealing with here is a new species of dinosaur that comes from Colorado in the western USA,” said Professor Paul Barrow, of the Natural History Museum, speaking to The Sun at the grand unveiling.
“It was discovered back in 2021 and we were able to acquire it thanks to an amazingly generous private donation, which allowed us to buy it for the museum.”
BACK IN TIME
The dinosaur itself is believed to have not been fully grown.
Normally the upper and lower parts of the creature’s back bones would fuse together as the animal aged.
But they weren’t fully fused together, suggesting that the dino may have been quite young.
And it certainly would’ve been surrounded by dino pals.
“At the time, Colorado would have been a floodplain,” said Professor Susannah Maidment, of the Natural History Museum, speaking to The Sun.
“It would have had a series or rivers coming down from high land to the west, and there would have been dinosaurs all over it.
“Some of the most famous dinosaurs – thinks like Diplodocus and Camarasaurus and Brachiosaurus.
“And so this little dinosaur would have been running around at the feet of those giants.”
GREEN MACHINE
This particular dinosaur was a herbivore, meaning it mostly ate plants.
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But because flowering plants hadn’t evolved yet, Professor Maidment told us, it “would have just been eating things like cycads and ferns”.
The dinosaur didn’t need to move fast to eat – but it did need speedy legs to avoid being eaten.
It lived alongside deadly predators, including prehistoric crocodiles.
“We know it’s a very speedy little dinosaur,” said Professor Paul Barrow.
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“It has very long hind legs – it walks on its hind legs only.
“So its main defence against predators would actually have just been a speedy getaway.
“And it’s living at the same time as quite a lot of other large predatory dinosaurs.
“Probably the most famous of which is a thing called Allosaurus, which is a big carnivore that gets up to about nine or 10 metres (29 to 32ft) in length – it’s quite common at the time.
A timeline of life on Earth
Here’s a brief history of life on our planet
- 4.6billion years ago – the origin of Earth
- 3.8billion years ago – first life appears on Earth
- 2.1billion years ago – lifeforms made up of multiple cells evolve
- 1.5billion years ago – eukaryotes, which are cells that contain a nucleus inside of their membranes, emerge
- 550million years ago – first arthropods evolve
- 530million years ago – first fish appear
- 470million years ago – first land plants appear
- 380million years ago – forests emerge on Earth
- 370million years ago – first amphibians emerge from the water onto land
- 320million years ago – earliest reptiles evolve
- 230million years ago – dinosaurs evolve
- 200million years ago – mammals appear
- 150million years ago – earliest birds evolve
- 130million years ago – first flowering plants
- 100million years ago – earliest bees
- 55million years ago – hares and rabbits appear
- 30million years ago – first cats evolve
- 20million years ago – great apes evolve
- 7million years ago –first human ancestors appear
- 2million years ago – Homo erectus appears
- 300,000 years ago – Homo sapiens evolves
- 50,000 years ago – Eurasia and Oceania colonised
- 40,000 years ago – Neandethal extinction
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“But also a lot of speedy predators as well, and also some big crocodiles that could have taken out this guy.”
DIG IT
The creature was first unearthed in 2021 from a commercial quarry.
And it was thought to be a Nanosaurus, a “poorly-known” species that was first named in 1870s.
The Enigmacursor was acquired from the David Aaron Ltd gallery with support from David and Molly Lowell Borthwick (after whom the dinosaur is now named).
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And Natural History Museum scientists renamed it after analysing the specimen, confirming it as a species new to science.
But there is still a mystery: exactly how fast the nippy little creature could run.
“It was a two-legged dinosaur and so it had very small forelimbs actually,” Professor Maidment told us.
“But we don’t really know how fast it would have run at all.
“It probably might have been able to just about outrun us – but probably not much faster than that.”
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