Roarsome foursome: UK’s new dinosaurs found in lockdown
A ROUND-SNOUTED herbivore, a predatory ‘hell heron’ and a meat-eater the size of a chicken... They may sound like nightmarish creations from Jurassic Park but these are among the dinosaurs that were discovered in Britain this year.
In an ‘exceptional’ 12 months for UK scientists, researchers have identified four new species from across the country, partly as a result of lockdown giving them more study time.
These include Pendraig milnerae, which is thought to be the UK’s first carnivorous dinosaur despite being no bigger than a chicken.
It was first unearthed in a Welsh quarry about 70 years ago but was only named this year after decades in London’s Natural History Museum.
Scientists on the Isle of Wight also identified two dinosaurs from the spinosaurus family – distant cousins of the T-Rex – which roamed southern England some 125million years ago.
One was named Ceratosuchops inferodios – which translates as ‘horned crocodilefaced hell heron’ – whose long jaws would have helped it grab fish from rivers.
The other, Riparovenator milnerae, was named in honour of British palaeontologist Angela Milner who died in August. Also found on the Isle of Wight was Brighstoneus simmondsi, a planteating iguanodontian dinosaur.
They were among 552 species named by the Natural History Museum this year including 90 beetles, 52 wasps and a ‘Jurassic mouse’ that lived in Scotland 166million years ago.
Professor Paul Barrett, a senior dinosaur specialist from the museum, said: ‘The discovery of four UK dinosaurs in one year is exceptional, and more than I have ever seen in my 25-year career.
‘Experts have certainly had additional time to go back and look at things more closely because of the pandemic, or to finish off the identification of dinosaurs which had been ongoing for years and left on the back-burner.
‘The UK has a rich heritage when it comes to dinosaurs, so it is good to discover more of them.’