Workmen blasting bedrock while building a school near the city of Ganzhou unearthed a beautifully preserved fossil of the roughly 6.5-foot-long (2-meter-long) dinosaur, nicknamed the "Mud Dragon," still in that contorted position, scientists said on Thursday. The Cretaceous Period creature, called Tongtianlong limosus, lived 66 to 72 million years ago, at the twilight of the dinosaurs' more than 160-million-year reign on Earth. It was a member of a group called oviraptorosaurs, one of the closest relatives to birds, which evolved earlier from small, feathered dinosaurs. A well-preserved fossil of a new species of winged dinosaur, known as Tongtianlong or Mud Dragon, is seen in an undated handout picture. "If you saw the 'Mud Dragon' alive, you probably would have said, 'That's a big, funny-looking bird,'" Brusatte said.

Source: bd News24 November 16, 2016 11:48 UTC