A stunning fossil dinosaur uncovered by two PhD students has been determined to be a new species of raptor.

Michael Pittman from University College London and Jonah Choiniere of George Washington University discovered the fossil after the latter saw a claw protruding from a cliff face in Inner Mongolia.

“I only saw the tip of the claw sticking out of a cliff face, and it was a total surprise that the whole skeleton was buried deeper in the rock,” says Choiniere (GWU press release).

Now described in Zootaxa as Linheraptor exquisitus, the dino is a relative to the movie-monster velociraptor. The researchers believe it probably ate small horned dinosaurs related to Triceratops.

As the fifth dromaeosaurid recovered from the same set of rocks, Linheraptor exquisitus should help reconstruct the evolution of this branch of the dino family.

“I’ve always wanted to discover a dinosaur since I was a kid, and I’ve never given up on the idea. It was amazing that my first discovery was from a velociraptor relative,” says Pittman (UCL press release).

Image: David Hone