OSU student discovers a new dinosaur
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) – An Oklahoma State University student has officially become a part of an exclusive club in discovering a new dinosaur and naming it.
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Kyle Atkins-Weltman was studying what he thought were bones of a juvenile dinosaur commonly known as a “chicken from hell” when it turned out he discovered a whole new species.
“They were about 25% smaller than other Anzu fossils. We figured it was a juvenile Anzu,” he said. “I assumed it was an Anzu until the evidence showed it wasn’t.”
Kyle named the new dinosaur Eoneophron infernalis, which translates to “Pharaoh’s Dawn chicken from hell.”
The name honors the description of the dinosaur it was believed to be as well as his late beloved Nile monitor lizard named Pharaoh.
Based on rough estimates, Eoneophron weighed around 150 to 160 pounds and stood about 3 feet tall at the hip, about the size of a human.
“It was a very bird-like dinosaur. It had a toothless beak and relatively short tail. It’s hard to tell its diet because of the toothless beak,” he said. “It definitely had feathers. It was covered in feathers and had wings.”
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Atkins-Weltman’s paper on the new Eoneophron species was just published in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE, released by the Public Library of Science.
“Kyle is the first student researcher at [Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences] to reveal, describe and name a new dinosaur,” said associate professor of anatomy Eric Snively, Ph.D., and Atkins-Weltman’s faculty advisor.
Learn more about his discovery process on OSU’s website.
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