The smallest dinosaur?
Another intriguing discovery from the amber mines of Myanmar
OCCASIONALLY, A FOSSIL turns up that reminds people of how little is really known about the past. This, perhaps, is such a discovery. It is the skull, a mere 7mm long, of a tiny, yet full-grown dinosaur, preserved in amber from a deposit in northern Myanmar which is 99m years old. That dates it to the middle of the Cretaceous, more than 30m years before this period’s more famous dinosaurian denizens, Ankylosaurus, Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus, bestrode what is now North America.
This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “The smallest dinosaur?”
From the March 14th 2020 edition
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