Giant "Chicken From Hell" is New Dinosaur Species

The big, bad, beaked stuff of nightmares, new dinosaur Anzu wyliei is described as “hell’s chicken” by the researchers who found it. Credit: Mark A. Klingler, Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

Researchers announcing a newly described dinosaur called it the “chicken from hell,” “hell’s chicken” and “scary as well as absurd.”

More prosaically known as Anzu wyliei, the beaked dinosaur stood about ten feet tall and more than 11 feet long with a tall crest on its head and sharp claws. A. wyliei lived about 66 million years ago in what’s now North and South Dakota, possibly sharing the same habitat as the iconic Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops species. Researchers announced the new species this week.

Despite its vicious-looking claws, A. wyliei likely ate vegetation, small animals and possibly the eggs of other species. It lived on a floodplain and, while flightless, had a bird-like appearance with slender legs and a toothless jaw. Although no fossilized evidence of feathers were found, based on its relationship with other feathered species, researchers believe the animal had feathers on its tail and arms.

Illustration courtesy of Bob Walters.

Researchers estimate Anzu wyliei weighed perhaps 450-650 pounds, making it among the largest known oviraptorosaurs.

Oviraptorosaurs are feathered dinosaurs that belonged to the larger maniraptor group, from which modern birds evolved.

Aside from getting to put the phrase “chicken from hell” in a press release, researchers who described the new dinosaur today in the open-access journal PLoS One have good reason to be excited about the find. Their analysis is based on partial remains of three separate individuals found in the Hell’s Creek formation; together, the fossils form an almost complete A. wyliei skeleton. That’s important because the dinosaur belongs to the Caenagnathidae family, a mysterious offshoot of the oviraptorosauria subgroup previously known only from a handful of fragmentary bones.

Having a nearly-complete example of a Caenaghathid not only fills in a blank in the fossil record, it’s also rewriting the oviraptor family tree.

Already A. wyliei‘s remains have settled a debate about the relationship between different oviraptors species: “hell’s chicken” has shown North American oviraptors are much more closely related to each other than to similar species in Asia. At the same time, researchers believe an Asian oviraptor, the 26-foot-long Gigantoraptor, should be reclassified as a Caenaghathid based on similarities its shares with A. wyliei.

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Explore the Milky Way in Amazing 360-Degree Panorama

The Cat’s Paw Nebula. Credit: NASA/ESO/DSS2

Do you lack the time and funds for a fancy spring break getaway to some tropical clime? Well, NASA has the perfect intergalactic trip package for you. From the comforts of your desk chair, you can venture thousands upon thousands of light years into the Milky Way galaxy and return before your lunch break is over.

NASA’s Spitzer telescope spent the past decade snapping two million infrared photographs of our galaxy to stitch together a massive 360-degree panorama of the Milky Way. It’s the most detailed infrared panorama of our home galaxy ever made, and was derived from the GLIMPSE360 project.

Our galaxy is a flat, spiral disk about 100,000 light years in diameter. The GLIMPSE panorama only includes a small sliver of the sky — about 3 percent — but includes more than half of the stars in the Milky Way, which is due to our galaxy’s pancake shape.

When you take time to explore the panorama, you can find distant galaxies and areas of star formation. You’ll also notice that our galaxy is riddled with bubbles. These structures are cavities around massive stars, which blast wind and radiation into their surroundings. GLIMPSE also added navigation shortcuts so you can skip to popular destinations like Cat’s Paw Nebula, Canis Major and the galactic center (where a massive black hole resides).

However, the GLIMPSE data aren’t all for show. The data have helped astronomers create precise star maps of the Milky Way’s inner arms. The data will also guide NASA’s upcoming James Webb Space Telescope to areas of star formation, where it will make even more detailed observations. The GLIMPSE panorama and Spitzer telescope mission are described in more detail in the video below.

While your friends and coworkers may tout their newly bronzed skin, you can brag about your tromp through the dark, unexplored backcountry of our galaxy where some of the faintest stars exist. Subsequently, your friends and family may suggest you take an actual vacation.

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