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Scientists have discovered a species of dinosaur at the point of evolving from meat-eater to vegetarian. The falcarius utahensis ate plants but its bones show it was still evolving from its carnivorous ancestors.
The species, which lived 125 million years ago in Utah, could help scientists understand how all plant-eating dinosaurs descended from meat-eaters. Bones from hundreds or maybe thousands of these dinosaurs were discovered at a two-acre dig site, south of Green River.
Paleontologist James Kirkland describes the two-legged, feathered creature in Nature journal. It had five inch claws on its outsized hands, and measured 12 feet from its snout to the tip of its long skinny tail.
Falcarius retained the rather horizontal posture and built-for-speed legs of its meat-eating ancestors. But it had already lost the flattened and serrated teeth used to tear meat and acquired the smaller, more densely packed teeth of a vegetarian.
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