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We know it. You know it. Even toddlers know it: there’s something endlessly cool about dinosaurs. From Jurassic Park to skeletons in museums, these prehistoric monsters have captured our imaginations for as long as we’ve known about them, and now there’s a brand new dino making its debut at the Natural History Museum.
Since the museum lost Dippy, its Diplodocus skeleton, to Coventry, the NHM has had a Jurassic hole in its heart – until now. A brand new dinosaur, named Enigmacursor Mollyborthwickae, or Enigmacursor for short, is ready to stun tourists, school trips, and paleontologists for years to come.
Obviously, this creature isn’t ‘new’ in the sense that it died 150 million years ago, but it’s only just been officially recognised by scientists. It’s a two legged herbivore thought to have lived in the wetlands in what is now the US, and it was only about 500cm tall, although it is thought that this particular specimen was not fully grown.
There’s clues as to this tiny dinos origin story in its name: the ‘enigma’ part refers to the fact that it was a mystery to scientists for a long time, as they previously thought it was a different species entirely, and ‘cursor’ is latin for runner, owing to the fact that this little guy was probably quite speedy given its small stature. It might have even been quite cute – a far cry from jagged teethed raptors or towering T-Rexes.
Prof. Susannah Maidment, who is a co-author of the groundbreaking study into the Enigmacursor, has said that ‘the generous donation of this rare specimen has had quite unexpected scientific repercussions… Rather than simply assigning fossils to familiar names, this discovery shows just how vital rigorous taxonomic work is to inform our understanding of the evolution of these fascinating creatures.’
The best part of this new arrival at the Natural History Museum? It’s a real skeleton. Most of the time when you see dinosaur skeletons in museums they are plaster-casts or exact replicas, but these are real life prehistoric bones. As we said, undeniably cool.
The skeleton will be on permanent display in the museum from tomorrow (June 26) for all to enjoy.
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