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Description
Here's the new small basal ornithopod, Changmiania, from Early Cretaceous China. This dinosaur is known from two beautifully-preserved complete skeletons that were buried intact when their burrows collapsed. Further evidence for a fossorial lifestyle includes adaptations such as a shovel-like snout and extended shoulder blades for anchoring powerful arm muscles. The name means "eternal sleep," since the skeletons were preserved in lifelike sleeping positions.

The "official reconstruction (www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-n… ) of the holotype shows a fluffy, but somewhat skinny, dinosaur, whose anatomy is easily digestible by the viewer; I wanted to take a different approach. My Changmiania is a dinosaur equivalent to the golden mole (alphynix.tumblr.com/post/61992… ), which is a bizarre, eyeless, iridescent, potatolike afrotherian from the deserts of southern Africa whose skeleton looks like that of a perfectly normal-shaped small mammal. Check out the inside view (imgur.com/gallery/0l9js25 )!

Description
Here's the new small basal ornithopod, Changmiania, from Early Cretaceous China. This dinosaur is known from two beautifully-preserved complete skeletons that were buried intact when their burrows collapsed. Further evidence for a fossorial lifestyle includes adaptations such as a shovel-like snout and extended shoulder blades for anchoring powerful arm muscles. The name means "eternal sleep," since the skeletons were preserved in lifelike sleeping positions.

The "official reconstruction (www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-n… ) of the holotype shows a fluffy, but somewhat skinny, dinosaur, whose anatomy is easily digestible by the viewer; I wanted to take a different approach. My Changmiania is a dinosaur equivalent to the golden mole (alphynix.tumblr.com/post/61992… ), which is a bizarre, eyeless, iridescent, potatolike afrotherian from the deserts of southern Africa whose skeleton looks like that of a perfectly normal-shaped small mammal. Check out the inside view (imgur.com/gallery/0l9js25 )!