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Seven-Year Old Becomes Youngest Person To Discover New Species Of Dinosaur

Seven-Year Old Becomes Youngest Person To Discover New Species Of Dinosaur

Diego Suarez fulfilled every kid’s dream by discovering the new species of dinosaur while playing on holiday in Chile

Tom Wood

Tom Wood

I don't know if you've noticed, but kids are getting smarter all of the time. Earlier today, we saw a story about a maths problem that was sent home with someone's seven-year-old kid that was too hard for most of our tiny minds.

When most of us were seven we were interested in trying to avoid having a bath and playing around with trains. Well, now a kid has gone and written himself into the record books by finding a fossil of a brand new dinosaur at the tender age of 7 years old.

In 2004 Diego Suarez was just a Chilean kid hanging around outside in the forests around a place called Aysen when he stumbled upon some weird looking rocks on the floor.

Now, most seven-year-olds dream of finding dinosaur bones on their holidays, but for Diego it became a reality.

Luckily, his parents are both geologists who had brought him on the trip to the Carre Negro area of Chile as part of their research, so they were able to help him identify what he had found.

His mum said: "Because of the age of the rocks and their texture in conjunction with the history of the place, they had to be dinosaurs."

What they didn't realise at the time was that Diego had found a completely new dinosaur altogether.

Dinosaur Fossils.
PA

His dad added: "They were two small bones that were later recognised as part of an exceptional fossiliferous location in the Chilean Patagonia Mountain Range where the new and strange species was found."

The bones were given over to a scientific team who studied them further, and even recognised Diego by naming the dinosaur after him - Chilesaurus diegosuarezi - which is possibly the coolest thing ever.

We now know a bit about the creature too. Fernando Novas, head of the Comparative Anatomy Laboratory at the Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences Bernardo Rivadavia in Buenos Aires explained: "The Chilesaurus diegosuarezi had arms that were sturdy, but his hands only had two rather short fingers that ended in slightly curved claws, so it was clear this species did not use its hands to capture animals.

"This dinosaur could be described as a puma with a guanaco head and atrophied hands like of a Tyrannosaurus rex."

Diego, now 20, has only recently applied for and received the record, 13 years since he made the discovery. He offered the following advice to anyone looking to follow in his footsteps: "Just because the world thinks something does not exist, doesn't mean it is not there."

Deep stuff indeed - truly something for us all to ponder. Excuse me for now though - I'm just off to try and dig up some dinosaur bones.

Featured Image Credit: Evelyn D'Esposito (Creative Commons)

Topics: Science, World News, Dinosaur, Interesting