Find identical dinosaurs ... chickens

One of the world's leading fossil hunters revealed a giant dinosaur shaped like a chicken. The result may change the evolutionary theory of prehistoric animals.

The image of the Gigantoraptor dinosaur skeleton with legs about 175cm high - equivalent to the height of a man (Photo: Li Rongshan)

The body of the animal, estimated at 1,400 kg, was found by Professor Xing Xu at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in the Erilian Basin of Mongolia.

The new animal, Gigantoraptor erlianensis, is the largest bird-shaped dinosaur ever found with a height of 5 m and is about the size of a famous tyrant dinosaur.

The creature that survived 85 million years ago is 35 times heavier than other known similar species.It has a beak and has sparse hairs.

Through skeleton analysis, researchers believe that Gigantoraptor belongs to the same Oviraptor family.These are animals with beaks and feathers, which look like birds and can't fly, but they weigh only 1-2 kg.The largest known fur is the Stirton Thunderbird, which weighs half a ton, lived in Australia 6 million years ago.

"If you're surprised to see a mouse as big as a pig, you'll be equally surprised to see Gigantoraptor ," Xing said. " This new dinosaur is much bigger than other animals of the same species. We spent a whole year verifying its characteristics and properties ."

(Photo: Zhao Chuang and Xing Lida)

The results may contradict an evolutionary hypothesis that meat-eating dinosaurs get smaller as they become more like birds.The results also show that this 11-year-old animal may still be immature.