The tiny dinosaur, dubbed the "Ashdown maniraptoran," measures about a foot in length and was unearthed in the United Kingdom. It lived during the Lower Cretaceous, a period lasting from 145 to 100 million years ago.
"It perhaps weighed as little as 200 grams (seven ounces)," co-author Darren Naish told Discovery News. "Like other maniraptoran theropods, this would have been a small, feathered, bird-like bipedal dinosaur with a fairly short tail, long neck, long slim hind legs, and feathered clawed forelimbs."
Naish is an honorary research associate in the School of Earth & Environmental Sciences at the University of Portsmouth. He and colleague Steven Sweetman analyzed the remains of the dinosaur, unearthed in the Pivensey Pit at Ashdown Brickworks, a site located northwest of Bexhill, East Sussex.
"The Isle of Wight, Surrey and East Sussex are all hotspots that frequently reveal new dinosaur species, which is not bad for a country that has probably been more thoroughly explored and studied than any other in the world," Naish said.
He and Sweetman conclude that the discovered fossil, a posterior cervical vertebra, likely belonged to a previously undocumented dinosaur species, since there are no named dinos that were maniraptoran theropods from the same-aged rocks from the same region.
Because they haven’t unearthed the dinosaur’s skull yet, the researchers cannot make firm statements about the new dino’s diet.
"Based on other oviraptorosaurs and other small maniraptorans, it was perhaps an omnivore, eating small animals, including insects, as well as leaves and fruit," Naish said.
He added that, like most theropods, the Ashdown maniraptoran would have walked with its body and tail held in a horizontal position.
Its location adds to the growing body of evidence that during the Early Cretaceous, Southeast England and continental Europe were often home to similar dinosaurs and other animals.
"Land bridges that existed during part of the Early Cretaceous time also resulted in similarities between European dinosaurs and those of the U.S.A.," Naish continued.
Technically, the world’s smallest known dinosaurs are modern birds, since birds are dinosaurs. As such, the world’s smallest dinosaur is the Cuban bee hummingbird, which measures 2 inches in length and weighs only about .063 ounces.
The Ashdown maniraptoran’s greatest rival for "world’s smallest non-avian dinosaur" at the moment is Anchiornis from China. It has been estimated at being 30 to 40 centimeters long. Where it exactly fell within that range remains unclear.
Read more at Discovery News
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