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Kyle Atkins-Weltman, a graduate student at Oklahoma State University, ordered and examined femur, tibia and metatarsal bones that he initially thought were from an Anzu wyliei.
© Kyle Atkins-Weltman
Dinosaur fossils that a student is examining turn out to be fossils of a previously unknown species. The student is surprised.
When Kyle Atkins-Weltman was examining dinosaur fossils as part of a study project a few years ago, he noticed a few irregularities.
He wanted to examine bones thought to belong to an Anzu wyliei, a bird-like dinosaur known as the "chicken from hell."
But the bones he received from a fossil collector were smaller than expected.
He assumed they must have come from a young Anzu and sent them to an anatomy professor for further examination.
When Atkins-Weltman received the results a few months later, he felt his “heart skip a beat.”
The bones did not come from an Anzu or any other known dinosaur;
Atkins-Weltman, a master's student, had discovered a new species.
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Student discovers new species of dinosaur
Last week, Atkins-Weltman, now a doctoral student at Oklahoma State University, announced the discovery of Eoneophron infernalis, a bird-like species similar to but smaller than the Anzu.
Researchers believe that Eoneophron infernalis, like the Anzu, had long claws and legs, toothless beaks, feathers on its body and short tails.
But Eoneophron infernalis was over three feet tall and weighed about 160 pounds - about three feet smaller and 400 pounds lighter than Anzu.
Atkins-Weltman, 28, told The
Washington Post
that he never expected to discover and name a species, especially not while in college.
“It took me at least two or three days to really understand it because it was such a stroke of luck,” said Atkins-Weltman, who studies anatomy and vertebrate paleontology.
"...It didn't start with a Eureka, but with a 'Hmm, that's strange.'"
Atkins-Weltman has been interested in dinosaurs for as long as he can remember.
As a child, one of the few ways he could stop crying was when someone showed him pictures of dinosaurs or reptiles.
While others wished that humans would escape in the Jurassic Park films, Atkins-Weltman said he was for the dinosaurs.
In January 2020, while pursuing his master's degree at the University of Kansas, Atkins-Weltman began a project to study nine species of dinosaurs.
He ordered the femur, tibia and metatarsal bone of what was believed to be Anzu from a fossil seller for $5,000.
Researchers found the bones in the Hell Creek Formation, an area that stretches across Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming and where many dinosaur fossils have been discovered.
The Anzu is nicknamed the “Chicken from Hell”
The first Anzu fossils were found there in the early 2010s.
Scientists nicknamed the species the “chicken from hell” because it looked like a human-sized chicken.
The Anzu's femurs were vertical, but when Atkins-Weltman examined the bones, he found that the femoral head was shorter than expected and sat at an oblique angle.
Additionally, Atkins-Weltman said, the ankle bones examined were fused to the tibia - a bone structure unknown among the Anzu.
Hoping to learn more about the dinosaur, Atkins-Weltman sent the bones to Holly Woodward, an anatomy professor at Oklahoma State University, in the summer of 2020.
Woodward cut open the middle of the bones and examined them under the microscope.
The rings in the bones of young animals are usually widely spaced, indicating rapid growth, Woodward said.
However, the rings in the bones studied by Atkins-Weltman were close together, suggesting that the dinosaur's growth had slowed and was almost at its peak, Woodward said.
Woodward said the bones likely belonged to an adult or subadult dinosaur.
The researchers concluded that the bones did not come from an Anzu child growing out of its bone structures, but from an undiscovered species with distinctive characteristics.
Although Atkins-Weltman had wondered why the bones were structured differently, he had not expected that they came from a new species.
Dinosaur populations declined 66 million years ago
Previous research had found that dinosaur populations were declining before an asteroid wiped them out about 66 million years ago, but Atkins-Weltman said his discovery shows that the biodiversity of the Caenagnathidae - the family of Anzu and Eoneophron infernalis - was thriving.
Although it is usually professional researchers who discover new species, Atkins-Weltman is not the first student to do so in recent years.
Last year, an Alabama teenager discovered a possible previously unknown species of whale on her family's property, and two Tennessee students identified a possible new crayfish.
Also last year, Montana State University reported that a student helped discover a new species of dinosaur.
In February 2021, Woodward sent the bones of Eoneophron infernalis to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh for preservation.
Meanwhile, Atkins-Weltman continued working on the research project that had led him to Eoneophron infernalis.
Now he is studying Tyrannosaurus rex.
He's excited about his latest breakthrough, published in the journal
PLOS One
, but feels pressured to do something better.
“You set a standard that you know everyone will measure everything you do against it,” Atkins-Weltman said.
He says he wants to create a museum that immerses visitors in the Cretaceous period of North America.
There are said to be Triceratops models, plants from that time and other dinosaurs.
After his discovery, Atkins-Weltman could also show models of Eoneophron infernalis.
To the author
Kyle Melnick
is a reporter in The Washington Post's Morning Mix newsroom, where he covers stories from around the country and the world.
We are currently testing machine translations. This article was automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English on February 1, 2024 at the “Washingtonpost.com” - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.