Russian paleontologists at St. Petersburg State University said Thursday that they have discovered a new species of fast-running dinosaurs believed to have lived in Siberia at least 100 million years ago.
A single specimen of the Kiyacursor longipes was found in the Kiya River of the coal-producing Kemerovo region. The dinosaur belongs to a genus of carnivorous ceratosaurs thought to have lived in the Late Jurassic Period around 153-148 million years ago.
“This dinosaur is the first ceratosaur found in the sediments of the Cretaceous period [145-100.5 million years ago] in Asia, while it was previously believed they went extinct in this area 40 million years earlier,” scientists said.
Kiyacursor longipes belongs to a family of noasaurids, which the Russian paleontologists described as “small, graceful and fast-running ceratosaurs.” The name Kiyacursor means “runner” from the banks of the Kiya River, while longipes means “long-legged.”
The dinosaur was able to run fast thanks to its long hind limbs, which are similar to those of modern-day ostriches, according to the scientists.
The study describing the Kiyacursor longipes was first published on Wednesday in The Royal Society of London’s flagship biological research journal.