Anzu wyliei—nicknamed "the chicken from hell" by scientists—is being described as a cross between a terrifying bird and a lizard. Large, feathered, and armed with a beak and claws, Anzu roamed the Dakotas during the late Cretaceous period. Hans Sues, one of the team of scientists that identified the dinosaur and curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Smithsonian told BBC News, "Anzu is really bizarre, even by dinosaur standards."

"The skull has this extraordinarily tall and thin crest with a snout and a huge beak with sharp edges and a strange sliding jaw joint," that could be used to cut up vegetation and meat, he says.

The discovery of Anzu, which is named in part for a feathered demon from Mesopotamian mythology, provides detailed evidence of oviraptorosaurs in North America. (Most of these creatures have been found in Asia.) It also suggests that even until the end of their reign certain communities of dinosaurs were evolving and flourishing. This is contrary to earlier assumptions that dinosaurs were on the decline just before the astroid strike due to climate change.

Matthew Lamanna, the lead author of the study and a paleontologist at Carnegie Museum told the Washington Post,

“When people think of a dinosaur, they think of something like a T. rex or a brontosaurus, and when they think of a bird, they think of something like a sparrow or a chicken. This animal, Anzu, has a mosaic of features of both of those groups, and so it basically provides a really nice link in the evolutionary chain.”

You can read the complete study in the journal PLOS ONE. More here, here and here.

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