Pendraig Milnerae

Paleontologists have described a new species species of dinosaur of cellophysoid theropod category from the Late Triassic deposits of the region of South Wales’ Pantyffynnon. This new species of dinosaur which has been named Pendraig milnerae lived 200 to 215 million years ago during the Late Triassic period.

Naming of this discovery

• Chief dragon is the meaning of Pendraig in Middle Welsh.
• Milnerae in honor of Dr. Angela Milner who was a famous palaeontologist.

Highlights

• The earliest example of theropod found in the UK is the Pendraig milnerae.
• Generally, species that live on islands often tend to be smaller than those on the mainland, known as island dwarfism.
• Since the reptiles in the discovered area, including the Pendraig milnerae, are all quite small, statistical analyzes were performed to investigate whether Pendraig milnerae could have been a dwarf.
• The results confirm that Pendraig milnerae is indeed small.
• Various features in the bones found that the Pendraig milnerae specimens were not fully developed.
• Pendraig milnerae could have grown larger than the specimens found so far thus limiting the possibility of a reliable analysis of body size.

About the fossil

The Pendraig milnerae fragmentary fossils  consists of a girdle, articulated pelvic, posterior vertebrae, sacrum and associated left femur. Two specimens including a partial left ischium and an isolated  vertebra. The team’s work was published in the  Royal Society Open Science journal.