Fossil of World's Smallest Dinosaur Found

A new fossil discovery by scientists is believed to be the world's smallest dinosaur, which is informally dubbed as the "Ashdown maniraptoran" that lived over 100 million years ago. The findings of the latest discovery, a new species of carnivorous non-avian dinosaur are being published in the most recent issue of the ‘Cretaceous Research’ journal. The fossil, a tiny neck bone was unearthed in the southern United Kingdom and grew no more than 15.7 inches (40 centimeters) long.

The world's smallest dinosaur was initially found by an amateur fossil-hunter but he kept it in his bedside drawer for 2 years not recognizing the significance of his discovery. 51-year-old collector Dave Brockhurst staggered on the fossilized vertebrae of the foot-long creature at a brickworks near his home in Bexhill, East Sussex. He did not think much and kept in the drawer, until finally taking it to two palaeontologists (Dr Darren Naish and Dr Steve Sweetman) who were able to determine the shape and size of its long-extinct owner.

The researchers now hope that still more bones of the Ashdown maniraptoran will be found along the South Coast in the coming years. After bones are found, researchers will be able to verify whether this is a complete new species, or only a misidentification. Several few tiny dinosaurs have been unearthed in recent years, out of which a chicken-sized dinosaur Albertonykus borealis that paleontologist Nick Longrich of the University of Calgary tells as "bizarre" is one of the most memorable. Anchiornis from China is the Ashdown maniraptoran’s biggest rival for "world’s smallest non-avian dinosaur" at present. Anchiornis has been anticipated to be 30 to 40 centimeters long but accurately where it fell in the range remains uncertain.