New species of dinosaur discovered

A newly-discovered fanged dwarf dinosaur, called the Pegomastax africanus, would have been a nice pet, according to the scientist that discovered it.

The fossil was originally chipped out of red rock in the 1960s but was discovered by palaeontologist and professor at the university of Chicago, Paul Sereno, who is also National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, in a collection of fossils at Harvard University.

Sereno published his study of the dinosaur, nicknamed thick-jaw from Africa, in the ZooKeys online journal. He said that the dinosaur lived along forested rivers in southern Africa about 200 million years ago, at the very beginning of the dinosaur era.

It is thought that the Pegomastax had reptile scales, porcupine-like quills, a blunt, parrot-like beak and was about the size of a domestic cat - growing to around 0.6 metres (2ft) long. The dinosaur was part of the Heterodontosaurus family and was a herbivore, with fangs used for self-defence and competition for mates, as opposed to meat-eating.

Professor Sereno said: "It would be a nice pet - if you could train it not to nip you."