Students discover new species of raptor dinosaur

The exceptionally well preserved dinosaur, named Linheraptor exquisitus, is the first near-complete skeleton of its kind to be found in the Gobi desert since 1972, and will help scientists work out the appearance of other closely related dinosaur species. Linheraptor is in the Dromaeosauridae family of the carnivorous theropod dinosaurs and lived during the Late Cretaceous period. In addition to Linheraptor and Velociraptor, theropod dinosaurs include charismatic meat-eaters like Tyrannosaurus rex and modern birds. The two PhD students, Michael Pittman from UCL and Jonah Choiniere from George Washington University (GWU), found the dinosaur sticking out of a cliff face during a field project in Inner Mongolia, China. Their research is published online today in the journal Zootaxa . ?Jonah saw a claw protruding from the cliff face. He carefully removed it and handed it to me.