Scientists Discover 66-Million-Year-Old 'Chicken From Hell' Beaked Dinosaur in North America

Scientists have unearthed fossilized remains of a 66-million-year old sharp-clawed bird-like dinosaur.  This new discovery presents the largest oviraptorosaur ever found in the North America.

Scientists from Carnegie and Smithsonian Museums and the University of Utah recently revealed the finding of an ancient bird-like dinosaur, dubbed 'Chicken from hell', that roamed alongside the Tyrannosaurus Rex in North and South Dakota.

Weighing a whopping 400-600 pounds, the 11 ½ foot long beaked dinosaur is officially called Anzu Wyliei. It derives its name Anzu from the bird-like demon in Mesopotamian mythology and Wyliei after a dinosaur loving boy, grandson of a Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh trustee.

"It was a giant raptor, but with a chicken-like head and presumably feathers. The animal stood about 10 feet tall, so it would be scary as well as absurd to encounter," Emma Schachner ,  University of Utah biology professor and co-author of a new study, said in a news release.

Scientist's unearthed three partial skeletons of the beaked dinosaur from Hell Creek rock formation in North and South Dakota. This site is known to be flooded with fossils of T.Rex and Triceratops. This newly discovered dinosaur that is 5 feet tall at the hip, is currently housed at the Carnegie Museum.

Anzu, is the largest but the youngest oviraptorosaurs known,  indicating it existed close to the era when  dinosaurs almost disappeared, this period is known as the K-T extinction [Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T)] event that led to their mass extinction.  An asteroid appears to have struck the planet some 65 million years ago leading to their end.

The researchers believe that the beaked dinosaur was an omnivore eating vegetation, small animals and eggs while living on wet flood plains.  Two out of the three specimens show some evidence of pathology.

A broken and healed rib and a toe trauma indicate that the specimen was aggressive in nature. Discovered a few years ago, the team found six bones from the neck, forelimbs and shoulder. The fossilized bones belonged to the same species of dinosaur.

The finding was documented in the journal PLOS One.