- An 80-million-year-old dinosaur tail fossil discovered on Denman Island, British Columbia, provides the clearest evidence of ostrich-like dinosaurs on North America's Pacific coastline.
- The fossil, an isolated caudal vertebra, was identified as belonging to an indeterminate ornithomimosaur, a fast-running, bird-like theropod dinosaur from the Cretaceous period.
- Researchers utilised CT scans to create a 3D model of the fossil, comparing it to complete ornithomimosaur and tyrannosaur skeletons to confirm its classification.
- Ornithomimosaurs, which lived between 145 and 66 million years ago, resembled modern-day ostriches with their small heads, slender bodies, toothless beaks, and long legs and necks.
- The precise manner in which the bone came to be deposited on the Canadian island remains unknown, with theories including a floating carcass, wave action, or transport by a scavenging dinosaur.
IN FULL
Tail belonging to strange ostrich-like dinosaur discovered off coast of Canada
