By Tim Binnall
Paleontologists are celebrating something of a landmark discovery in the form of a tiny skull which now stands as the smallest-known dinosaur ever found. The diminutive cranium, which is encased in 99-million-year old amber, reportedly measures a mere 7.1 millimeters or approximately a quarter-of-an-inch long. To put that in some perspective, the dinosaur would have been smaller than any bird known to exist on Earth today.
The scientists who studied the skull were understandably amazed by its remarkably small size. "When I first saw this specimen, it blew my mind," marveled Jingmai O'Connor of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, "I have literally never seen anything like this." She noted that the jaws of the bird-like creature "are filled with teeth" and that it also sported "really big eyes." These characteristics, O'Connor mused, indicate that "despite its teeny tiny size, it was a predator and it was probably feeding on small insects."
Since only the skull of the creature, which has been given the scientific name Oculudentavis, has been found, it's uncertain as to whether or not the dinosaur could fly. To that end, while paleontologists say that the fossil appears to be from a bird-like species, it also boasts some lizard-like traits, suggesting that it occupies some evolutionary space between the two. Ultimately, O'Connor declared that "Oculudentavis was just weird" and observed that "if it wasn't for amber, we wouldn't know about this minute fauna at all."