Hummingbird-size dinosaur may actually be a lizard
By Laura Geggel - Associate Editor 16 hours ago
The jury's still out until another specimen of the species gets analyzed.
Researchers initially thought this skull belonged to a bird-like dinosaur. Now, evidence suggests that it's the head of a lizard.
(Image: © Lida Xing)
A fossil attributed to a teensy, feathered dinosaur may not be a dinosaur at all, but rather a ... lizard, according to new research. With the new criticism, the March study — titled "Hummingbird-sized dinosaur from the Cretaceous period of Myanmar" was retracted yesterday (July 22) from the journal Nature where it had been published, according to a statement in the journal.
The creature’s 99 million-year-old skull was entombed in amber when scientists discovered it in a mine in Myanmar (formerly Burma), and while the creature was somewhat of a weirdo with its bird-like head and roughly 100 super-sharp teeth, researchers concluded this was likely the smallest dinosaur ever found. (It likely weighed just 0.07 ounces (2 grams), the weight of two dollar bills, Live Science previously reported.)
Whether the animal (Oculudentavis khaungraae) was a bird-like dinosaur or a lizard, that doesn’t negate the finding's importance, the study’s scientists say. "It's just a really weird animal and an important discovery regardless of whether it's a weird bird or a weird lizard with a bird head," study co-lead researcher Jingmai O'Connor, a senior professor of vertebrate paleontology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told Live Science in an email.
One study posted on bioRxiv, a preprint database where studies are “published" before they undergo review by science peers, posits that the specimen is a lizard. In this new study, Zhiheng Li, from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and colleagues looked back through the computed tomography (CT) scans of the little animal. They found several features of the animal that contradicted the idea of a bird-like dinosaur and said that it aligned much better with lizard traits. These included features of the animal’s lizard-like teeth and the features on its fenestra, or the openings in the skull behind the eye sockets that are found in animals such as dinosaurs and lizards.
More:
https://www.livescience.com/retraction-smallest-dinosaur.html
