Researchers discovered a new meat-eating dinosaur in Venezuela that was believed to be an early relative of the Tyrannosaurus rex.
Only two bones of the new species, called Tachiraptor admirabilis, have been unearthed, Science AAS reported. The bones are both from the ancient animal's lower leg and suggest it stood close to five feet tall.
The rocks surrounding the site where the dinosaurs were found contain tiny crystals, allowing researchers to date them. The research team believes the sediment was deposited 200.7 million years ago. During this time the area was most likely volcanically active. The period was only about one million years after the mass extinction that ended the Triassic phase.
"These survivors of the Triassic-Jurassic mass extinction were the 'ground zero' for later theropod evolution," Thomas Holtz Jr., a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Maryland, College Park, who was not involved in the study told Science AAS. "[The new study] shows that important discoveries don't have to be of the biggest or the scariest [dinosaurs]."
A creature dubbed Laquintasaura was believed to have lived in the same area at the same time as the Tachiraptor. This dinosaur had the same general appearance as the Tachiraptor, but was from a different group called ornithischians.
"All the small dinosaurs of that era looked about the same," said Richard Butler, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom and a member of the team that described Laquintasaura.
These species are not believed to have grown to large sizes or evolve distinct appearances until millions of years later. In the future the researchers hope to find more fossils in this region and close up even more holes in the fossil record.
The research was published Sept. 7 in the journal Royal Society Open Science.
