Researchers have discovered the newest species of theropod, the dinosaur group that included Velociraptor and Tyrannosaurus and evolved into modern birds.

The new species named as Chilesaurus diegosuarezi turned into a vegetarian 145 million years ago unlike its famous cousins who were still meat-eaters.

Researchers hadn’t seen an herbivorous theropod until much closer to modern birds on the evolutionary timeline until now.

In its initial examination, it was looked as if someone sewn together a beaver and a duck as it exhibited obvious characteristics of two different animals. Researchers thought that the bones of Chilesaurus diegosuarezi belong to multiple species.

Chilesaurus diegosuarezi is named in honor of Diego Suárez, who found the first bone remains in the Toqui Formation in Chile at the age of 7 while out with his geologist parents.

But then they found enough additional bones, including four complete skeletons, most about the size of a turkey.

The dinosaurs had big forelimbs like the Allosaurus with two blunt fingers at the end instead of claws. However, diegosuarezi’s pelvis shape, small skull and some other bones resembled different groups of dinosaurs.

This indicated about a herbivorous lifestyle that evolved in theropods independently of these other groups. Study author Martin Ezcurra of the University of Birmingham said, “Chilesaurus can be considered a ‘platypus’ dinosaur because different parts of its body resemble those of other dinosaur groups due to mosaic convergent evolution”.

Chilesaurus has provided a good example of how evolution works in deep time. This discovery is also one of the most interesting cases of convergent evolution documented in the history of.