Tuesday, June 15, 2021

It's a Bird, It's a...Lizard?

 Oculadentavis khaungraae was identified as a hummingbird-sized dinosaur.

Nope, it's a lizard.

A new species in the genre, Oculadentavis naga has proven this. It's just a very, very strange lizard.

Specifically, it had scales (dinosaurs have smooth skin or feathers), lizard teeth rather than dinosaur teeth (lizards have teeth that attach to the jawbone directly unlike both dinosaurs and mammals), and a hockey stick-shaped skull bone that is very specific to scaled reptiles.

Part of the issue was that khangraae's skull looks very like that of a bird, with a thin beak-like jaw.

Naga also has a raised crest and appeared to have a chin pouch that could be used in display. It's...a lizard, but not like any of the ones we know.

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