Scientists have discovered a new dinosaur species named Fona herzogae in Utah, USA. This dinosaur is part of a group called thescelosaurines, which were small, plant-eating dinosaurs.

The fossils of Fona herzogae were found in the Cedar Mountain Formation and belong to multiple individuals. This makes it one of the most well-preserved collections of these dinosaurs in North America. Scientists used these fossils to figure out that Fona herzogae is the earliest known member of its group.

Thescelosaurines lived during the Late Cretaceous period, about 100 million years ago. They had some unique features, like bipedal walking (walking on two legs), a long face, and special teeth for eating plants. Fona herzogae and another dinosaur called Oryctodromeus likely shared a lifestyle of digging or burrowing.

The new dinosaur fossils show a lot of variation, meaning that individual dinosaurs could look quite different from each other. This variation might be due to their age, gender, or other natural differences.

Before this discovery, we didn’t have much information about thescelosaurines from earlier times. Fona herzogae helps fill in this gap and shows that these dinosaurs were already living in North America much earlier than we thought.

This discovery not only gives us a clearer picture of dinosaur evolution but also suggests that different types of small, plant-eating dinosaurs lived in North America at the same time but in different habitats. This new knowledge helps us understand the rich and varied world of dinosaurs better.