This new Jurassic dinosaur wasn’t discovered by a paleontologist, but by a seven-year-old child. (Are you as jealous as I am?)
On February 4, 2004, while hiking around southern Chile with his geologist parents Manuel Suarez and Rita de la Cruz, young Diego Suarez picked up a few bones he found on a hillside. His parents immediately recognized them as a rib and vertebra of a little dinosaur, and, with his sister Macarena joining in, Diego and his family scoured the site for more.
Now, more than a decade later, the dinosaur has been named for Diego and the place it was found: Chilesaurus diegosuarezi:
Based on several specimens unearthed at the site, Fernando Novas of the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales and his co-authors announced the new plant-plucking theropod this week in Nature.
