Researchers have unearthed a new kind of dinosaur that was about the size of a turkey and is believed to be an ancestor to the Triceratops.
Dated to more than 200 million years ago, Laquintasaura venezuelae was named after Venezuela, where it was discovered, The Telegraph reported via the ITN and AFP.
The plant eater subsisted on a diet of ferns and likely lived in herds during the earliest Jurassic period, scientists said in the paper published Wednesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Laquintasaura venezuelae stands as "the first new dinosaur species found in the north of South America," lead study author Paul Barrett told BBC Radio 4.
Also said to be related to the Stegosaurus, the two-legged dinosaur was around 3 feet tall and distinctly had the teeth of an omnivore, Live Science reported.
"The teeth are very unusual, with a tall, narrow triangular outline, tips that are slightly curved backward, coarse serrations along the margins and thin ridges that extend up and along the crown," said Barrett, who is a vertebrate paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London, as quoted by Live Science.
The dino's unique teeth indicate that it may have dined on bigger bugs as well as ferns.
"This combination of features is unknown in any other dinosaur," Barrett noted. "Although the triangular shape and coarse serrations suggest that plants made up most of the diet, the tall outline is reminiscent of meat-eating teeth, as are the slightly curved tips, so it is possible that Laquintasaura took small prey such as large insects some of the time."
Researchers found at least four specimens of the new species, suggesting that the fox-sized dinosaurs traveled in herds. Other details including the dinosaur's climate remain a mystery.
"Some of the rocks in the general area of the discovery represent semiarid environments, while others indicate more swampy environments," Barrett said. "The climate would have been hot, but the amount of water would have varied through time."
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