A new species of plant-eating dinosaur – that weighed as much as an African elephant – roamed the Isle of Wight around 125 million years ago, a new study suggests.
The specimen, with 149 bones in total, is believed to be the most complete dinosaur discovered in the UK in a 100 years.
Comptonatus chasei, named after fossil hunter Nick Chase and the place it was found, belongs to a group of plant-eating dinosaurs known as iguanodontians.
The large, bulky creatures are often described as the “cows of the Cretaceous period (145-66 million years ago)” by palaeontologists and were hunted by the meat-eating raptors.
