A new species of dinosaur, nicknamed a “murder muppet,” was discovered by an undergraduate student at Virginia Tech. His research may change what scientists previously believed about early dinosaurs.
The dinosaur’s scientific name is Ptychotherates bucculentus. It’s one of the oldest known meat-eating dinosaurs, explained Simba Srivastava, a senior at Virginia Tech.
“It’s this really short, rounded face, like a bulldog. Or, you know, cats have very short faces,” Srivastava described. “But it’s got a face full of sharp teeth. These big eyebrows. So, murder muppet I think is pretty accurate.”
The murder muppet existed long before T-rex, during the Triassic period. “The dinosaurs were here for a super, super long time. And it’s just neat to think about. We live, like, three times closer to T-Rex than T-Rex does to this animal,” Srivastava explained.
It’s part of a group of dinosaurs called Herrerasaurus, and scientists had believed they went extinct earlier, but this discovery changes that.
“It may make us reconsider this larger pattern we thought we knew about dinosaur evolution,” Srivastava said.
At the end of the Triassic period, most animals across the world went extinct, likely from a series of volcanic eruptions that released gases.
“It seemed to wipe out all the large and medium land animals except for dinosaurs,” Srivastava said.
Thanks to his discovery, there’s now evidence to suggest the murder muppet may have been killed off around this time too.
Srivastava said he’d often dreamed of one day naming a dinosaur—but never imagined he’d have the opportunity as an undergraduate student. His professors Sterling Nesbitt and Michelle Stocker tapped him to begin studying this dinosaur when he was a freshman. They reconstructed the skull, which was discovered decades ago in New Mexico.
Srivastava and Nesbitt published their paper this month in the journal Papers in Palaeontology.
