A new dinosaur species has been revealed that had a bizarre protruding "eyebrow."
The beast was uncovered by paleontologists in southwestern Kyrgyzstan, who found two specimens of the theropod dinosaur over the past 10 or so years, according to a new paper in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.
Named Alpkarakush kyrgyzicus, the dinosaur is thought to have lived during the Middle Jurassic period, around 165 million years ago.
The larger dinosaur's skeleton was found only partially complete, but the paleontologists think it may have been between 23 and 26 feet long. The second, smaller specimen is thought to be a juvenile, while the larger is estimated to have been about 17 years old.
"A partial skeleton of a large theropod dinosaur from the late Middle Jurassic Balabansai Formation of Kyrgyzstan represents the first diagnosable theropod taxon from the Jurassic of Central Asia west of China, and is here described as a new taxon, Alpkarakush kyrgyzicus," the researchers wrote in the paper.
Theropods are a diverse group of dinosaurs primarily characterized by their hollow bones and three-toed limbs, comprising some of the most well-known dinosaurs, including the Tyrannosaurus rex, Velociraptors and modern birds, which are their direct descendants. Theropods, which were mostly bipedal and carnivorous, first appeared in the late Triassic period, about 230 million years ago, and rapidly diversified throughout the Mesozoic era.
Until this discovery, no theropods had been discovered between central Europe and China, with this fossil marking the first of its kind in both Kyrgyzstan and central Asia.
Alpkarakush kyrgyzicus was first unearthed in 2006 in the Balabansai Formation, with excavations in 2006 and 2023 uncovering a large number of bones.
"The material includes a few bones of the skull (postorbital, quadratojugal), dorsal and sacral vertebrae, fragments of the pectoral girdle and forelimbs, and an almost complete pelvic girdle and hindlimbs," the researchers wrote.
The dinosaur's skull was found to have a strangely protruding eyebrow bone, which may indicate that it had a horn just above its eye.
The paleontologists made 3D models of all the bones they discovered.
"These models are now available online and allow researchers worldwide to carry out follow-up studies and make 3D prints," study co-author Oliver Wings, director of the Bamberg Natural History Museum, said in a statement.
This species is thought to belong to a group of dinosaurs known as metriacanthosaurids. This group is thought to have originated in Southeast Asia, before spreading across the world via Central Asia and Europe.
"Although the affiliation of Alpkarakush with the metriacanthosaurids is not necessarily a surprise, this discovery closes a huge gap in our knowledge of the Jurassic theropods. It leads us to important new insights into the evolution and biogeography of these animals," study co-author Oliver Rauhut from the Bavarian Collection of Paleontology and Geology in Munich (SNSB-BSPG), said in the statement.
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References
Rauhut, O. W. M., Bakirov, A. A., Wings, O., Fernandes, A. E., & Hübner, T. R. (2024). A new theropod dinosaur from the Callovian Balabansai Formation of Kyrgyzstan. OUP Academic. https://doi.org/10.1093/zoolinnean/zlae090
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