A Completely New Dinosaur Species With "Ridiculously" Short Arms Discovered

Archaeologists have uncovered a new species of dinosaur that had even shorter arms than a T-Rex.

You are no doubt familiar with Tyrannosaurus rex (T-rex), the dinosaur that comes to everyone's mind when talking about these prehistoric animals. They are known for being one of the most deadly predators to walk the Earth, with a large body, sharp teeth, and powerful jaws, but this is contrasted with comically short arms.

Archaeologists have recently discovered a completely new species of dinosaur that has even shorter arms than Tyrannosaurus rex. The new dinosaur is being referred to as Koleken inakayali.

The bones of Koleken inakayali were discovered in the La Colonia Formation, located in Argentina, an area where fossil remains of other giant dinosaurs have been found in the past. It dates back to the Late Cretaceous period, approximately 70 million years ago.

Large carnivorous dinosaurs and other creatures from the ancient ecosystem have been discovered in this area before, but this new find surprised archaeologists, and not only because of the size of its arms. It is only the second species within the family of predatory dinosaurs to be found in the area.

Fossil discoveries in this formation have provided valuable insights into the diversity and evolution of dinosaurs during this time and offer a window into the prehistoric world of South America.

The find was published by researchers in the Cladistics journal. They believe that the new dinosaur belongs to the abelisaurids family of ceratosaurian theropod dinosaurs. Diego Pol, a paleontologist at the Argentine Egidio Feruglio Paleontological Museum, described Koleken inakayali as having a significantly different appearance, especially the arms.

"Abelisaurids also had ridiculous arms, even compared to Tyrannosaurus. Abelisaurids had massive shoulder bones, but extremely short arms with many small fingers, which were clearly unusable for catching any prey, but still quite flexible," he explains to the media.

According to National Geographic, at first archaeologists discovered part of the arm, a claw that had been hidden in stone. They also found bones from the skull, tail, almost an entire backbone, a hip, and bones from nearly two complete legs.

The researchers believe that the recent findings date back 70 million years. Diego Pol explains in the press release that the discovery of Koleken inakayali shows that there was more diversity during the time when dinosaurs lived before they became extinct 66 million years ago.