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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Dinosaur may represent missing link


This artist's conception shows the birdlike feathered dinosaur Falcarius utahensis. 
 (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
Dawn Fallik Philadelphia Inquirer

PHILADELPHIA – When dinosaurs first roamed the earth, they had fast legs to chase prey and sharp teeth to eat meat. Then some of them became vegetarians, and scientists could never figure out where the meat eaters stopped and the plant eaters began.

Now paleontologists in Utah say they’ve found the missing link in a new species of feathered dinosaur.

The Falcarius utahensis, which stands for “sickle maker from Utah,” appeared about 125 million years ago. It stood about 4 1/2 feet tall and had the 4-inch-long claws of a meat-eater but tiny plant-eating teeth – a carnivore well on its way to becoming a vegetarian.

“It’s the strangest looking dinosaur you can imagine,” said Matthew Carrano, curator of dinosaurs at the National Museum of Natural History, part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. “It’s as if you sewed the dinosaur together from pieces from other dinosaurs.”

Early dinosaurs appeared in the United States about 210 million years ago. Most were meat eaters and stayed that way, but over time others became herbivores. The Falcarius was a member of an intermediate group, the feathered therizinosaurs (pronounced THAY-rih-ZY-no-sores), a birdlike dinosaur that started out as a meat eater but then slowly switched to plants only.

The discovery appeared in Thursday’s edition of PBS’ “Nature.”

“We don’t know if it was an omnivore like us, eating plants and meat, or just plants,” said Scott Sampson, chief curator of the Utah Museum of Natural History and co-author of the study. “But it tells us about the shift.”

A new dinosaur species is discovered about a half-dozen times a year, scientists said. But the Falcarius is a major discovery because it fills in a piece of the paleontology timeline scientists always knew was out there, but weren’t sure where.

The Falcarius excavation began about three years ago, after a man who sold fossils on the black market approached James Kirkland, Utah’s state paleontologist and the study’s author.

The seller said he’d found bones that might come from a new species. He showed Kirkland the site, and ended up spending five months in jail, Kirkland said.

Since then, almost 1,700 bones have been found at the two-acre dig site at Utah’s Crystal Geyser Quarry, and scientists have about 90 percent of the Falcarius’ bones.

“If it wrapped its hands around your face it’d go all the way around,” said Kirkland. “It probably couldn’t eat you, but it could rip your face off.”