Current Events - New kind of Dinosaur!!

The dinosaur family tree just added a new relative: a small, nipping, meat-eating creature dating back to dinosaurs’ earliest days. Found in 230-million-year-old rocks in Argentina, this dinosaur would have been the smallest dinosaur ever (other than those from kinder eggs) – about the size of a 7-year-old. Paleontologists named this new dinosaur Eodromaeus (dawn runner), and this bipedal animal was named that partly because it was as light as a house cat. The Eoraptor was a similar-sized dinosaur known to have lived in the same time and place. The only noticeable difference between the two is that one of them had a diet of plants only while the other ate meat. The Eoraptor was the plant-eater, harmless to anyone but the plants around it. The Eodromaeus, however, looked about the same but was a descendant of the Tyrannosaurus Rex! It was clear that the Eodromaeus was a meat-eater right from the start - It had sharp teeth for cutting meat, as well as long finger bones for grasping, and interlocking mechanisms in its bones that stiffened the tail to help while hunting. This was interesting to me because I had always thought of dinosaurs as big, ferocious animals, with the exception of the easily pacified herbivores. Now, it turns out, there were also both carnivores and herbivores of the smaller variety – shorter than most of us!