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This Baby Chinese Dragon Is The World's Newest Dinosaur

The fossil was found nearly 25 years ago.
The 'baby dragon from China.'
Illustration by Zhao Chuang
The 'baby dragon from China.'

A new species of dinosaur has been formally identified more than 25 years after it was originally found and its name is a cool one.

The new animal is called Beibeilong sinensis, which translates to "baby dragon from China." The fossil of the infant dinosaur was originally discovered in Henan, China in 1992 and is said to be over 90-million-years-old. Experts were unable to pinpoint a specific species for the animal and eventually, National Geographic magazine dubbed the mysterious creature 'Baby Louie'.

A quarter of a century later, the new species is described in the journal Nature Communications as a giant bird-like dinosaur that laid eggs. Although the fossil of the dinosaur is small, the animal would have grown into an adult weighing more than 1,000kg, according to the journal.

"I imagine them as very birdlike," study co-author Darla Zelenitsky told National Geographic.

"The eggs are telling us that these dinosaurs were probably much more common than what their bones are revealing in the fossil record," she said.

At full maturity, the dragons would have been more than 25 -feet long and weighted more than three tons.

The over-sized 'dragon eggs' have been found in Korea, Mongolia and the United States as well as China, according to National Geographic.

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