With its long neck and slender body, researchers believe that “Natovenator polydontus” must have been swimming and diving, much like modern penguins.
It’s a very unique dinosaur. Discovered in 2008 in the Gobi Desert, Mongolia, the very complete fossil of a small theropod regarding 70 million years old has just been identified as a brand new species. It is described in a recent study published in the journal Communications Biology. baptized Natovenator polydontusthe animal – whose skull, vertebral column, part of the rib cage as well as three out of four limbs have been examined by paleontologists – has a very special anatomy for a dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous.
Small in size, it resembles a goose but also a penguin! Indeed, it has a very long neck but also a tapered body. Unlike terrestrial theropods, its dorsal ribs are not curved horizontally, they are in the direction of its tail like that of current diving birds. This dinosaur is therefore, according to the authors of the new study, visibly cut out for underwater swimming. On the other hand, in view of its short and flattened forelimbs, it seems that the animal might neither fly nor glide. Finally, as far as its diet is concerned, its toothy jaws leave little room for doubt: it was a formidable carnivorous predator, probably feeding on fish and insects.
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