Two New Dinosaur Species Discovered in China
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Scientists in China have discovered two new dinosaur species as they were analyzing fossils.
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Two new dinosaur species were discovered in northwest China
Scientists in China discovered two new dinosaur species in the country's northwest, according to a study published in Scientific Reports.
What's even more interesting about this is that the specimens were found in a region where dinosaur fossils had not been found before. A number of fossils recovered from China's Turpan-Hami Basin in Xinjiang were comprised of flying pterosaurs, preserved eggs, embryos, and fossil fragments of spinal vertebrae and rib cages.
Three of the fossils were at first a mystery to scientists, but analysis on them revealed that two of them belonged to previously unknown species: Silutitan sinensis ("silu" is Mandarin for "Silk Road") and Hamititan xinjiangensis (named after the location where the fossil was found, Xinjiang).
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The dinosaur fossils
Both fossils' names have the word titan in them, and that's because both fossils are estimated to belong to giant dinosaurs, which could have been over 70 feet (21 meters) long.
Earlier this year, scientists had discovered the remains of a tiny winged creature in China's Hubei Province. The new species of pterosaur was found fossilized and crushed in a rock dating back 160 million years ago.
It is worth mentioning that the world’s first dinosaur fossil found sitting on a nest of eggs was uncovered in China in Ganzhou back in March. The skeletal remains belonged to an oviraptorosaur; a bird-like beast that roamed the Earth more than 66 million years ago.
