Chilesaurus

dinosaur · puzzle · Chile · Jurassic

A mixing puzzle. Chilesaurus has features from three completely different dinosaur groups: theropods (meat-eaters that walked on two legs), ornithischians (plant-eaters with special hip bones), and sauropodomorphs (the ancestors of long-necked giants). Scientists are still arguing about which family it really belongs to.

Lived in ancient Chile. This dinosaur roamed what is now Chile during the Late Jurassic period, between 148 and 147 million years ago, when South America was a very different place.

Only ate plants. Unlike most theropods that hunted other dinosaurs, Chilesaurus was a vegetarian that munched on plants and leaves.

Only one species known. So far, scientists have only found one type of Chilesaurus, called Chilesaurus diegosuarezi, and it's the only member of its genus we know about.

Changing dinosaur history. This strange dinosaur makes scientists rethink how dinosaur families are related to each other and whether the way we group them is correct.