New dinosaur species found in Zhejiang

After research for more than three years, Chinese and Japanese scientists confirmed that the dinosaur fossil they found in the Tiantai county of east China's Zhejiang province was a new dinosaur species.

They named this dinosaur species the "Tiantai Yue Dinosaur." Their article about the research has been published in the U.K.-based Cretaceous Research magazine.

The dinosaur fossil was found in 1998 when a freeway was being constructed in the Tiantai county.

Researchers found that the fossil covered various parts of a dinosaur including the cervical vertebra, vertebra, caudal vertebra, fore limbs and hind limbs and it was one of the best-preserved dinosaur fossils discovered in Zhejiang Province.

Judging from the fossil, the dinosaur was about 1.5 meters long and less than 1 meter high and is the smallest dinosaur discovered so far in the province.

Through further research, researchers also found that the dinosaur was a new species. Since the place where it was discovered belonged to Yue State in the past, they named it the "Tiantai Yue Dinosaur."

This kind of dinosaur lived in the Cretaceous Period about 100 million years ago.

New dinosaur species identified in Saskatchewan

A 66-million-year-old partial skeleton discovered in Saskatchewan has been confirmed as a new species of plant-eating dinosaur.

The new species has been named Thescelosaurus assiniboiensis (THES'-kel-oh-SAWR'-us ah-SIN'-ni-boy-EN'-sis) after Saskatchewan's Assiniboia district where it was found.

The specimen was collected from the Frenchman River Valley near Eastend in 1968, but was only identified in recent years.



Caleb Brown, who was part of the team to study the bones, says the new dinosaur is notable for its small size compared to other contemporary herbivores — it was similar in size to a white-tailed deer.

The partial skeleton can be seen at the T.rex Discovery Centre in Eastend and an exact cast is on display at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Regina.

The new dinosaur species is described in the December edition of the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.

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