An artist’s illustration of Psittacosaurus, a little dinosaur with a parrot-like beak and bristles on its tail that roamed thick forests in China about 120 million years ago. The colour pattern suggested Psittacosaurus (pronounced sit-TAK-ah-sawr-us) lived in a forest environment with diffuse light from a dense canopy of trees, the researchers said. They look a bit like E.T.,” said molecular paleobiologist Jakob Vinther of the University of Bristol in Britain, referring to the friendly alien in the 1982 film “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.”A fossil of Psittacosaurus, a little dinosaur with a parrot-like beak and bristles on its tail . It also was the first time researchers were able to hypothesize the environment a dinosaur inhabited based on its colouration.

Source: Mint September 15, 2016 14:03 UTC