A mysterious creature resembling a dinosaur with flesh still on its bones has been discovered in Jaspur, a small city in Uttarakhand, India.
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The partially-preserved corpse was uncovered by an electrician cleaning out a sub-station left untouched for 35 years. It has been sent for carbon dating and other analysis to reveal its age.
Experts say that it looks like a small dinosaur, although that could be near impossible as flightless dinosaurs have been extinct for 65 million years.
Dr Parag Madhukar Dhakate, a Conservator with the Indian Forest Service, said that the creature would remain an enigma until scientific analysis had been completed.
“It looks like a dinosaur, but we can’t say anything until all the tests are done,” he said.
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Aaryan Kumar, who is pursuing a PhD in Paleontology from Delhi University, told local media that it was impossible for a dinosaur skeleton to be so well preserved after so long.
He said: “Non-avian dinosaurs have been extinct for the past 65 million years but it does resemble theropods, a suborder of dinosaurs which included bipedal carnivores.
“But a dinosaur skeleton could not have been found in such a well-preserved condition after millions of years without it being in a fossilized state.
“The only even slightly possible way is it was chemically preserved to store it in a museum. But if that was the case, how did it end up here?”
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The Deinonychus, the Coelophysis and the Dromaeosaurus are among the dinosaurs that resemble the shape of the 28cm-long creature.
These are all types of theropods, a suborder of dinosaurs that ranges in size from the mighty T Rex to the tiny Anchiornis.
Dr Dhakate said the specimen had now been sent to a paleontologist at Kumaun University for historical analysis.
One initial suggestion is that it could be a genetically distorted animal foetus from within the goat family, but for now the mystery remains unsolved.
