Speedy New Dinosaur Species Identified in Canada

Paleontologists in Canada have identified a new dinosaur, a small herbivore described as the smallest plant-eating dinosaur species known from Canada.

Albertadromeus syntarsus, as the new species is called, was about 5 feet (1.6 meters) long and weighed about 30 pounds (16 kilograms). Identified from a partial hind leg and other skeletal fragments, paleontologists believe the dinosaur was a speedy runner. (A translation of its Latin name means "Alberta runner with fused foot bones.")

Albertadromeus's two fused lower leg bones made the species distinct from its larger ornithopod cousins, the duckbilled dinosaurs.Being small had its advantages. Albertadromeus could use its natural speed and small size to avoid the many species of hungry meat-eating dinosaurs that lived alongside it during the Late Cretaceous era, about 77 million years ago.   

The 2009 discovery of Albertadromeus syntarsus was a great coup for paleontologists because smaller dinosaurs are much less likely to be preserved than their larger counterparts; small skeletons are more prone to destruction by carnivores, scavengers and weathering processes, so fewer small animals are available to become fossils and smaller animals are often more difficult to find and identify than those of larger animals.

"We know from our previous research that there are preservational biases against the bones of these small dinosaurs," said Caleb Brown of the University of Toronto, lead author of the recently published study on the new species.

"We are now starting to uncover this hidden diversity, and although skeletons of these small ornithopods are both rare and fragmentary, our study shows that these dinosaurs were more abundant in their ecosystems than previously thought."

Paleontologists from the University of Toronto, Royal Ontario Museum, Cleveland Museum of Natural History and University of Calgary have described a new dinosaur in a study published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.