Overview
- An international team led by Paul-Émile Dieudonné has named the new species Foskeia pelendonum, with the Colectivo Arqueológico y Paleontológico de Salas presenting the discovery.
- The animal measured about 50–60 cm in length, stood under 30 cm tall, and had a skull roughly 5.5 cm long.
- Excavations at Vegagete near Villanueva de Carazo yielded around 800 fossils from 125-million-year-old sediments, of which about 350 bones were identified from at least six individuals spanning juvenile to adult.
- A wide posterior skull, powerful jaw musculature, reduced front teeth, enlarged rear teeth, and absence of a rhamphotheca indicate adaptations for processing relatively tough vegetation.
- Femoral anatomy points to juveniles moving bipedally before adults shifted to quadrupedal locomotion, and the species helps bridge rhabdodontid ancestry while challenging earlier island-dwarfism interpretations.