'Parrot' dinosaur's not pretty

Scientists in China have discovered a feathered flesh-eating dinosaur, with a parrot's beak and dagger-like claws.Weighing more than a ton, the Gigantoraptor was far-from-pretty Polly.The creature, which stood on two legs, was at least twice the height of a man at the shoulder and more than 26 feet long.At about 1,400 kilograms, or 1.3 tons, it was 35 times heavier than any other feathered dinosaur known to date.In fact it may have been even bigger, because the specimen unearthed from the Sunitezuoqi region of Inner Mongolia was not fully grown.Gigantoraptor was the stuff of nightmares. Although it could not fly, it was extensively covered in feathers and had short "forewings" ending in large clawed hands.The head, which sat on an ostrich-like neck, resembled that of a bird with a powerful snapping beak in place of toothed jaws.The dinosaur lived in the Late Cretaceous period, around 70 million years ago, at the same time that Tyrannosaurus rex terrorised what is now North America.Most theories suggest that carnivorous dinosaurs became smaller as they grew more bird-like.Gigantoraptor, which evolved towards the end of the dinosaurs' reign on Earth, proved this was not always the case.The partial skeleton find included pieces of the beak, vertebrae, limb bones, right shoulder blade and pelvis.© Independent Television News Limited 2007. All rights reserved.

ITN | June 13, 2007

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