A new dinosaur has been discovered, and this one is odder than most.

Fossil hunters excavating in Chile have unearthed the remains of a Jurassic age creature that seems to have had features from different prehistoric animals.

As reported in the Guardian, the newly discovered dinosaur would have grown to be the size of a small horse and would have been the most common animal around 145 million years ago in what is now the Aysén region of Patagonia.

This discovery is considered one of the most remarkable dinosaur finds of the past two decades.

Fernando Novas, who hails from the Bernardino Rivadavia Natural Sciences Museum in Buenos Aires, has stated that he does not know how the evolution of dinosaurs produced this kind of animal or what kind of ecological pressures must have been at work.

“What’s surprising is that in this locality the most bizarre dinosaur is not the exception, but the rule. It is the most abundant animal we find,” said Novas.

The first fossilized bones of this new species were discovered in 2004 when a Chilean couple, who both happened to be geologists, were studying rocks in the Andes, trying to understand how the mountain range had been formed.

The couple’s son, Diego, was playing nearby when he found a fossilized bone that turned out to belong to the new species -- the new species which was in turn named "Chilesaurus diegosuarezi" after the boy.

The extinct new species is part of the theropod group of dinosaurs which includes the carnivorous tyrannosaurs and velociraptors as well. Unlike these carnivorous dinosaurs, Chilesaurus had somehow evolved to become vegetarian.

Meat eating dinosaurs tend to have sharp teeth and large heads supported by thick necks.
The new found Chilesaurus had a horny beak, flatter teeth for masticating plants, and a small head with slender neck. As Novas described, “It’s a therapod that turned vegetarian.”