Japan team unearths rare young dinosaur fossil
TOKYO, July 25 (Reuters Life!) - The fossilised remains of a dinosaur that died as a child were discovered in Mongolia by a team of local and Japanese researchers, who said the find was rare because the entire skeleton was almost perfectly preserved.
Nearly 80 percent of the bone structure of the dinosaur, which is believed to have been five-years-old, has been found intact, according to the Hayashibara Museum of Natural Science, home of the Japanese side of the joint research team.
"This is the first time in the world when this much of a young dinosaur fossil has been discovered in such good condition," Yoko Munemoto, a researcher at the museum, told Reuters.
"There are two other cases where about 30 percent of fossilized young dinosaurs' bones were unearthed," she added.
Fossilised remains of young dinosaurs are rare to find because their bones are small and easily weathered, the museum said in a report.
The fossil shows the dinosaur was about 70-cm (2.3 feet) tall and one metre-wide and it is believed to be a Tarbosaurus, a type of Tyrannosaurus which lived some 70 million years ago.
The research team made the discovery in August 2006, and carefully carved out the fossil and transported it to Japan.
Researchers have removed dust and mud and are now trying to separate the bones into independent pieces for further examination, the report said. (Reporting by Naoto Okamura, editing by Miral Fahmy)
