According to NBC News, we’re in a “golden age of dinosaur discovery.” Since Jurassic Park first came out, more and more people have been looking for dinosaurs.
Here are some of the biggest dinosaur discoveries from 2014:
- Spinosaurus: New fossils showed that Spinosaurus was the first dinosaur to swim. Spinosaurids were also the first dinosaur fossils every found in Malaysia
- Dreadnoughtus: One of the most complete and possibly largest dinosaur (the fossil found may have still been growing when it died)
- Deinocheirus mirificus: 50 years ago, scientists only knew about this dinosaur’s arms. Now they know it was almost as big as a T-rex, but it ate soft plants (and it has been compared to Jar Jar from Star Wars)
- Nanuqsaurus hoglundi: A tiny cousin of T-rex, only 2 meters tall at the hip, that lived in the Arctic. It was the dominant predator of its time
- Kulindadromeus zabaikalicus: Known for being the first plant-eating, feathered dinosaur, with feathers similar to chickens
- Aquilops: A small horned dinosaur, the size of a bunny, that appeared in North America 110 million years ago (the first of its kind)
- Pentaceratops sternbergii and Kosmoceratops: Two new species discovered in a museum’s storage facility. Not the first time scientists found a “hidden dinosaur“
- Torvosaurus gurneyi: Largest predator in Europe, with 4-inch long teeth used to rip open prey
- Anzu wyliei: Known as the “chicken from hell” because it was the size of a small car and had claws and feathers. The site where it was found helps prove the theory that dinosaurs were wiped out by an astroid (though apparently had the astroid come at any other time dinosaurs would have survived)
- Qianzhousaurus sinensis: Nicknamed “Pinocchio Rex” because of its long snout, this tyrannosaur was found in China and it was 29 feet long and weighed 1,800 pounds
- Cartorhynchus lenticarpus: The first amphibious dinosaur that shows how ichthyosaurs evolved from land to water
- Caiuajara dobruskii: A new type of pterosaur that lived around small lakes in Brazil
- Changyuraptor yangi: A four-winged dinosaur with a 21-foot wingspan that lived 125 million years ago . It had long tail feathers and was flying before birds
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