Palaeontology

Long-necked 'dragon' dinosaur discovered

By T.K. Randall
January 30, 2015 ·  11 comments

Some dinosaurs had extremely long necks. Image Credit: CC BY-SA 3.0 Nobu Tamura Known as Qijianglong, which means 'Dragon of Qijiang' in Chinese, the new species belongs to a group of dinosaurs called mamenchisaurids which are characterized by having extremely long necks that measure almost half the length of their entire bodies.

This particular specimen is around 15m in length and was found with its head still attached to its neck, something that doesn't happen very often due to how fragile the skull fossil is.

"Qijianglong is a cool animal. If you imagine a big animal that is half-neck, you can see that evolution can do quite extraordinary things," said Tetsuto Miyashita of the University of Alberta."Nowhere else we can find dinosaurs with longer necks than those in China. The new dinosaur tells us that these extreme species thrived in isolation from the rest of the world."

There is also the possibility that the discovery of fossils belonging to dinosaur species like Qijianglong might have been what originally sparked many of China's ancient dragon legends.

"I wonder if the ancient Chinese stumbled upon a skeleton of a long-necked dinosaur like Qijianglong and pictured that mythical creature," said Miyashita.

Source: Telegraph | Comments (11)

Tags: Dinosaur, Dragon