A new fossilized dinosaur in sleeping posture discovered

Chinese and American scientists published a report on Nature magazine on October 14, saying that they have found a new type of dinosaurs' fossil in China, which unveiled before people a dinosaur in sleeping posture for the first time.

In the report, Xu Xing, a scientist with the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Mark Norell, a scientist with the New York Museum of Nature and History in New York, said they found this well-preserved fossil in Beipiao City, in northeast China's Liaoning Province. It is a kind of dinosaur that lived 140 million years ago.

What attracts the scientists' attention is the fossil's shape, its hind legs huddling up under the body; its head buried under one foreleg, looking like a modern bird's sleeping posture. Scientists noted this was the first time that they found a dinosaur fossil in a sleeping state before death, and thus named it "sleeping dinosaur".

The dinosaur fossil is only 53 cm long and looks like a big bird, light and nimble. Scientists believe that the dinosaur's shape and sleeping posture are similar to those of a modern bird, which indicates the two kinds of animals have the same ancestry and proves that the evolution of flying act benefits from the agility of animals' body configuration. Scientists also point out due to the similarity of dinosaur to the bird, it is definitely a warm-blooded animal.

Scientists still can't determine the cause of the dinosaur's death yet. But according to their conjecture, maybe this animal was suffocated by volcanic ash during its sound sleep as a nearby volcano erupted.

Paleontologists have so far found a variety of dinosaur's fossils in China's Liaoning Province. Therefore, experts conclude that the province is one of the regions with the richest deposit of dinosaur's fossil in the world.

By People's Daily Online