New Bird-like Dinosaur Unearthed

The remains of an enormous, flesh-eating dinosaur that roamed the Earth 70m years ago have been discovered in a remote region of Inner Mongolia.

The feathered beast, called a Gigantoraptor is one of the most unusual dinosaurs to have been unearthed in recent years. It stood on two legs at twice the height of a man, was eight meters (26ft) long, and had a head like a parrot's and scythe-like claws on the end of wings far too small to lift its 1.4-tonne weight off the ground.

The finding has astonished experts because carnivorous dinosaurs were thought to have become smaller as they grew more bird-like. Gigantoraptor erlianensis, which emerged towards the end of the dinosaurs' reign on Earth, was 35 times heavier than any other feathered dinosaur known, proving this was not always the case.

The team of scientists who unearthed the fossilized bone fragments in the Sunitezuoqi region believe it may not have been fully grown.

Dr Xing Xu at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing reconstructed a partial skeleton from fragments of the beak, backbone, limbs, pelvis and shoulder blade. Announcing the discovery in the journal Nature today, the scientists write: "Gigantoraptor is remarkable in its gigantic size."

Analysis of the bones placed it in the family of dinosaurs known as the Oviraptorosuarids, a group of feathered dinosaurs rarely weighing more than 40kg (88lb).