New Welsh Dinosaur Has Been Named
The oldest Jurassic dinosaur in UK history has been formally named Dracoraptor hanigani.
The Welsh dinosaur was discovered on a beach near Penarth in the Vale of Glamorgan last year.
The name Dracoraptor means 'dragon robber', Draco meaning dragon, the symbol of Wales. The species name honours Nick and Rob Hanigan who discovered the amazing fossil and have now generously donated it to Amgueddfa Cymru-National Museum of Wales. The fossil can now be seen in the main hall of the National Museum Cardiff.
Also, on display for the first time will be the dinosaur's foot, which was discovered by Sam Davies from Bridgend, a palaeontology student at the University of Portsmouth, who has donated it to the Museum meaning the dinosaur now has one of its feet back in place. Sam discovered two blocks, which have been prepared to reveal the amazingly well preserved foot bones, still in their original alignment.
The original find was made by Nick and Rob Hanigan whilst fossil hunting along the Lavernock Beach in the Vale of Glamorgan after storms in spring 2014. After a cliff fall on the beach, they spotted several loose blocks containing part of the skeleton of a small dinosaur and collected the specimen, including its skull, claws and serrated teeth.
The fossilised bones were found spread across five slabs of rock and although some were preserved together in the correct position, others had been scattered and separated by the actions of scavenging fish and sea-urchins. The specimen was preserved with the fossilised remains of these sea-urchins.
Nick and Rob took time carefully preparing the specimen and then contacted Cindy Howells, palaeontology curator for Amgueddfa Cymru who, with the help of dinosaur experts from University of Portsmouth and the University of Manchester, analysed the teeth and bones. The team established that this particular dinosaur was a meat-eating dinosaur, from the theropod group. It also suggested that it was a juvenile animal as some of its bones are not yet fully formed.
The new Welsh dinosaur is a very distant cousin of Tyrannosaurus rex and lived at the very beginning of the Jurassic Period (201 million years ago) possibly making it the oldest Jurassic dinosaur in the world. It was a small, slim, agile animal, probably only about 70 cm tall and about 200 cm long, with a long tail to help it balance. It lived at the time when South Wales was a coastal region like today, but with a much warmer climate, and dinosaurs were just starting to diversify. It is related to Coelophysis which lived approximately 203 to 196 million years ago in what is now the southwestern part of the United States of America.
This new specimen is the first skeleton of a theropod found in Wales. Isolated teeth and bones of other dinosaurs have previously been found in South Wales near Penarth, Bridgend, and Cowbridge. Nearby at Barry is one of the earliest dinosaur footprint sites in Europe dating back to the Middle Triassic around 215 million years ago.
National Museum Cardiff is open Tuesday to Sunday, 10am till 5pm. Entry is free.
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