50 Top 10 Lists of 2007

Top 10 Scientific Discoveries

#7. A Big Birdlike Dinosaur

Writing in the journal Nature in June, Chinese scientists reported the discovery of the skeleton of an enormous, birdlike dinosaur that lived 70 million years ago. The paleontologists, working in Inner Mongolia, said the 3,000-lb. dinosaur's surprisingly avian qualities — such as longer and more slender limbs — challenged the widely accepted assumption that carnivorous dinosaurs got smaller as they got more birdlike. But its size aside — having died as a young adult, it probably could have grown even larger — Gigantoraptor erlianensis doesn't refute the theory that two-legged carnivorous dinosaurs are the ancient ancestors of modern birds.

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