JULY 5, 2016
by Brett Smith
Paleontologists have discovered the first-ever evidence of a tumor on the face of a dinosaur, according to a new paper in Scientific Reports.
Found on a fossil of the duck-billed dwarf dinosaur Telmatosaurus transsylvanicus, the tumor was determined to be non-cancerous and of a type commonly found in modern-day mammals, including humans.
"This discovery is the first ever described in the fossil record and the first to be thoroughly documented in a dwarf dinosaur,” Kate Acheson, a PhD student at the University of Southampton, said in a news release. “Telmatosaurus is known to be close to the root of the duck-billed dinosaur family tree, and the presence of such a deformity early in their evolution provides us with further evidence that the duck-billed dinosaurs were more prone to tumors than other dinosaurs."
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