A large new carnivorous dinosaur unearthed in Spain sported a very unusual pointed hump-like structure on its back, muscular legs and evidence for some of the world's first feathers, according to a paper in the latest issue of the journal Nature.
The dinosaur, Concavenator corcovatus, a.k.a. "the hunchbacked hunter from Cuenca," lived 130 million years ago in what is now Cuenca, Spain. Close to 20 feet long, the dinosaur was related to Carcharodontosaurus, an enormous predatory dinosaur that was possibly even longer than Tyrannosaurus rex.
The new dino's "bizarre" hunchback look is a first for dinosaurs.
"One of the unique characteristics of Concavenator, unknown in any other dinosaur yet discovered, is the particular elongation of the last two vertebrae in front of the hip area that project their neural spines on the back of the animal, forming a kind of hump whose function is so far unknown," lead author Francisco Ortega told Discovery News.
Ortega, a researcher in the Biology Group at the National University for Distance Education in Madrid, added that the new dinosaur "holds another surprise."
Like many modern birds, the dinosaur possessed "quill knobs," or small bumps on the forearms that generally hold feathers.
"This feature was also recognized in some small dinosaurs, very closely related to birds, such as Velociraptor," he said. "Surprisingly, Concavenator, four times larger than Velociraptor, and a priori too primitive to have feathers, also has these little bumps."
This likely means the large Spanish dinosaur either had feathers, or some type of skin structure that was "an ancestral stage of the feathers in birds," according to Ortega.
Read more at Discovery News
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