Quackers! The skeleton of a ‘swan’ that turned out to be a dinosaur
IT HAS been said that if something looks like a duck and walks like a duck, then it’s probably a duck.
But scientists who examined a skeleton that appeared to be very similar to a duck or a swan were surprised to discover it was a new species of dinosaur.
The strange creature had a graceful swan-like neck, but also had scythe-like claws, a reptilian tail, and a duck-billed snout lined with teeth. Halszkaraptor escuilliei – which lived 75million years ago – walked on two legs on land, but probably used its flippered forearms in water.
The well-preserved fossilised skeleton had been held in private collections for years after initially being discovered and illegally smuggled out of Mongolia.
But it has now been analysed at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France with the details published in the journal Nature. The dinosaur is the first of the large family of meat-eaters, called theropods, known to have adopted the lifestyle of a present day water bird. Other theropods include the tyrannosaurus rex and velociraptor.
Dr Andrea Cau, from the Geological Museum Capellini in Bologna, Italy, said: ‘The first time I examined the specimen, I even questioned whether it was a genuine fossil. It fits best with that of an amphibious predator that was adapted to a combined terrestrial and aquatic ecology – a peculiar lifestyle that was previously unreported in these dinosaurs.’