????A group of Chinese paleontologists on Thursday announced that they have discovered some fossils that belong to a new genus of dinosaur.

????They have named the new genus as "Inner Mongolia Dinosaur."

????Zhao Xijin, a paleontologist from the Institute of Ancient Amniotes and Ancient Humans under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that the fossils were discovered in the Erlian Basin in China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

????"It belongs to the sickle-shaped dinosaur, but is not similar with those that already have been discovered," Zhao said.

????He and his group estimated that the neck of the dinosaur was about 0.7 meters, "however, the other sickle-shaped dinosaurs that have already been discovered usually had short necks."

????"It had at least 14 neck vertebras," Zhao said, adding that its neck was the longest among those of the same kind.

????The research on the fossils has been going on for more than one year after they were discovered in August of last year.

????According to the scientists, the newly discovered dinosaur lived some 80 million years ago and was a kind of moderate or small sized polyphagia dinosaur, about 2 meters long and less than one meter high, with a narrow long head and neck, hook-shaped claws, wiry teeth and lanky tail.

????The Erlian Basin is located in the north border area between China and Mongolia. It is rich in oil resources and is the place where the first dinosaur fossil was found in 1893.

(China Daily 11/24/2000)