A 72-million-year-old Chinese dinosaur has been accidentally blasted with dynamite.
Found on a construction site near Ganzhou, the skeleton belongs to a previously undiscovered species of oviraptosaur.
The dinosaur's thought to have died trapped in mud, so has been named Tongtianlong limosus or "muddy dragon on the road to heaven".
"It was found at a construction site by workmen when they were dynamiting, so they nearly blasted this thing off the hillside," says University of Edinburgh palaeontologist Stephen Brusatte.
"We almost never knew about this dinosaur."
About the size of a sheep, Tongtianlong limosus' bird-like features will give scientists new insights into the dinosaurs' eventual evolution into the birds we see today.
"They were basically the last group of dinosaurs to blossom before the asteroid hit," says Dr Brusatte.
The dinosaurs were wiped out not long afterwards due to a variety of factors, most notably the asteroid which hit present-day Mexico about 66 million years ago.
Newshub.
