‘Frankenstein’ dino discovery

The legendary Bigfoot is often described as the "missing link" between apes and man, but the Chilesaurus has an edge on Bigfoot: it is the missing link between herbivore dinosaurs and their carnivorous brethren. In a new study done by the University of Cambridge, Chilesaurus, which lived 150 million years ago, scientists now believe the dinosaur is an early member of the "Ornithischia," a "bird-hipped" group that includes dinosaurs such as the Stegosaurus and Iguanadon. Researchers found that the Chilesaurus has the same inverted hip structure of the Ornithischia group, which aids in complex digestive systems. But it also lacks the beak Ornithischia dinosaurs used for eating. "Chilesaurus almost looks like it was stitched together from different animals, which is why it baffled everybody," said Matthew Baron, a doctoral student in Cambridge University's Department of Earth Sciences and the paper's joint first author, in a statement.