Scientists have discovered an entirely new species in northern Arizona, but it has been extinct for more than 220 million years.
Akidostropheus Oligos was an aquatic dinosaur with a neck longer than both its body and tail combined.
It swam and lived in the warm, swampy ponds and small rivers of northern Arizona during the Triassic period.
Paleontologists from Petrified Forest National Park partnered with the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History to name and publish a report on the new species last week.
The study was led by seasonal paleontologist Alaska Schubert.
The new fossils were found near a site at Petrified Forest known as “Thunderstorm Ridge” and are very small.
They were found by collecting large amounts of rock from the site, rinsing that rock with water through fine metal screens, and looking at it under a microscope to find the tiny fossils.
The fossils are so small that the species' name refers to the small size of the remains.
Akidostropheus Oligos means “tiny, spiked back bone,” because a single neck bone of the creature is less than 7 millimeters tall, smaller than the average pinky fingernail, and has a unique spike on top.
Similar species were common in Europe and China but are extremely rare in North America.
