World's smallest dinosaur discovered: 'We've never seen anything like it'.

[Anonymous No.11460506]

(https://www.foxnews.com/science/worlds-smallest-dinosaur-discovered))

>The world's smallest dinosaur has been found, a two-inch bird-like creature that "looks like it just died yesterday."

Known as Oculudentavis khaungraae, the bird-like dinosaur was found encased in Burmese amber in 2016 and likely lived in Myanmar 100 million years ago, according to a study published in Nature. The creature died when a small amount of tree resin fell on its head, eventually entombing its skull.

>"Amber preservation of vertebrates is rare, and this provides us a window into the world of dinosaurs at the lowest end of the body-size spectrum," the study's lead author, Lars Schmitz, said in a statement. "Its unique anatomical features point to one of the smallest and most ancient birds ever found."

O. khaungraae likely weighed less than an ounce and is believed to be on par with the smallest bird alive today, the bee hummingbird, which resides only in Cuba. Despite its tiny size, it's believed that the diminutive dinosaur was likely a predator, feeding on insects.

It also had wings, a pair of bulging eyes, similar to a lizard, and a beak with approximately 30 teeth, all of which can be viewed thanks to a computer-generated 3-D image. It's unclear if the dinosaur was able to fly, one of the study's co-authors, professor Jingma O'Connor, told Newsweek, noting its "weird" and "incomplete" features.

>"I was completely blown away. You can see this beautiful, tiny bird skull preserved within this piece of amber," O'Connor, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said in a separate interview with British news agency SWNS. "I was going around showing it to everyone, like 'look at this, it's so cool!'"

>"To a paleontologist, it's weird. We've never seen anything like it," O'Connor added. "I definitely couldn't keep a lid on this one!"

[Anonymous No.11460564]

>paleontology
Not science or math.

[Anonymous No.11460583]

>>11460564
>paleontology
>not a science

I too dislike the paleo diet, but I believe OP was talking about something else.

[Anonymous No.11460587]

>>11460506
>Carnivore Hummingbird
Glad it's dead tbqh

[Anonymous No.11460645]

>>11460587
>imagine a hummingbird that looks like a tiny pterodactyl swooping in at half the speed of sound, taking a tiny hummingbird sized bite out of my skin and flying away before I can even see wtf that was that just bit me

Ya know .... so am I.

[Anonymous No.11460671]

[Anonymous No.11461255]

>>11460506
>fox news
>dinosaur

It seems the republicans still think like in the prehistoric-age.

[Anonymous No.11461280]

>>11461255
the republicans will save the world from the demonrats

[Anonymous No.11461296]

>>11460671
>showing an 'artists rendering' before the real thing

[Anonymous No.11461300]

>>11460506
How cute!

[Anonymous No.11461303]

>>11460506
Watch it just be a fucking bird

[Anonymous No.11461317]

How do they know it was a tiny adult and not just a normal sized baby?

[Anonymous No.11461473]

>>11461317
Bone fusion.

[Anonymous No.11461914]

>>11461303
it is an early bird. Birds are dinosaurs

[Anonymous No.11461917]

>>11461303
That's a dinosaur for you, hairless ape scum.

[Anonymous No.11461943]

>>11460645

Now imagine a flock of them, homing in on you.
Imagine using time travel to drop nukes into the past.

[Anonymous No.11462586]

>>11461255
Boomer comic level humor.

[Anonymous No.11462589]

>>11460506
So what makes it a non-avian dinosaur?
>>11461914
Cool word games, now shut the fuck up, you're not clever.

[Anonymous No.11462614]

>a bird
>with a beak
>and 30 FUCKING TEETH
AAHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[Anonymous No.11462622]

>>11460506
Ah yes a colisaurus.

[Anonymous No.11462625]

>>11460506
>>11460671
>have nothing but the skull
>extrapolate that it was a bird with wings and tailfeathers that could fly
Paleontologists are bunch of quacks who just make shit up for attention. Who else here is old enough to remember the Iguanadon "nose spike"?

[Anonymous No.11462651]

>>11460506
Eh, although birds are situated in the lineage of dinosaurs, it stretches the term too much to call this obvious bird "dinosaur" instead of just "bird". But that wouldn't result in grants and press.

[Anonymous No.11462661]

>>11462625
I'm amazed that they looked at such a birdlike skull and concluded that it could be a non-avian dinosaur.

[Anonymous No.11462667]

[Anonymous No.11463029]

>>11462625
>>11462651
Looked it up, and it's an avialan dinosaur. Translation: regular bird.

[Anonymous No.11463187]

>>11460671
Fucking cool.

[Anonymous No.11463195]

>>11462651
Can you really call it a bird when its such an ancient creature? It's been a while since I had evolution in Uni but I wouldn't call it a bird since birds need to be warm blooded.

[Anonymous No.11463199]

>>11463195
It’s morphology is closer to that of modern birds than archaeopteryx.

[Anonymous No.11463209]

>>11460587
>>11460645
It would be as likely to attack you as a falcon is.

>>11463195
Non-avian theropods were almost certainly endothermic

[Anonymous No.11463210]

>>11460564
Thankfully, that way the rest of us can find something to enjoy in it.

[Anonymous No.11463214]

It's literally just a bird. When are we going to stop pretending that dinosaurs were anything other than birds?

[Anonymous No.11463220]

>>11463199
>>11463209

Well, I can see how a layman would rather call it a bird but something doesn't feel right about this. It certainly wouldn't be included in the class Aves

[Anonymous No.11463230]

>>11463214
Dinosaurs are dinosaurs and birds are birds. There might be intermediates hard to categorize but what's the point in differentiating at all when we all have the same ancestor?

[Anonymous No.11463239]

>>11463230
>There might be intermediates hard to categorize but what's the point in differentiating at all when we all have the same ancestor?
You share a common ancestor with a slime mold. Are you a slime mold?

[Anonymous No.11463247]

>>11463239
That's exactly the point I'm making, albeit badly phrased since there's a 'then' missing in my post.

[Anonymous No.11463266]

>>11463247
Fair enough. I get what you mean.

The bird/dinosaur distinction is breaking down, though. I don't think there has been any real attempt to draw a line in the sand between what is a bird and what is a dinosaur but I may be wrong. I've never been a zoologist.

[Anonymous No.11463325]

>>11463266
I don’t think the distinction is breaking down, I think paleontologists are playing word games to get funding.

[Anonymous No.11463354]

>>11463325
It's a sad fact in science that you have to play the game to get funded. Wish it were different.

But this thing isn't a bird scientific speaking.

[Anonymous No.11463474]

>>11463220
It's in that weird space of almost a bird but not really.

>>11463230
Dinosaurs are dinosaurs and birds are birds while also being dinosaurs too. This is how categories work.

>>11463266
The distinction is only useful so long as it's useful. We'll probably make a new label to cover the group of dinosaurs more closely related to modern birds than archaeopteryx and call it a day.

[Anonymous No.11463481]

>>11463474
>birds are birds while also being dinosaurs too

how so? what category covers both?

[Anonymous No.11463513]

>>11463481
Some theropod dinosaurs survived and turned into modern birds. They never stopped being theropods. They never stopped being dinosaurs.

[Anonymous No.11463530]

>>11460506
It's actually a bird that died yesterday.

[Anonymous No.11463550]

>>11463513
heh, I just looked into it - I actually didn't know that Theropoda = Dinosaurs, including Aves.

[Anonymous No.11463552]

>>11460506

> NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE IT
yea, never has anybody ever seen a fucking bird

[Anonymous No.11463627]

>>11463552
with teeth, while also being 2 inches long

[Anonymous No.11463633]

>>11460506
>we've never seen anything like it
Well I have-- a bee hummingbird

[Anonymous No.11463819]

>>11462589
It's not a matter of words. You can call them whatever you like and it won't change the substance of what they are.

[Anonymous No.11463824]

>>11463230
All birds are dinosaurs but not all dinosaurs are birds.

Did you sleep through set theory or something? What is your excuse?

[Anonymous No.11464002]

>>11463824
no excuse. I just assumed what I remembered was correct. Shame on me