Chilesaurus diegosuarezi may be a close relative of Tyrannosaurus rex, but the newly discovered species is such a hodgepodge of unusual characteristics, it might be better to compare it to a platypus.

Chilesaurus was discovered in 2010 by 7-year-old Diego Suárez, who was out on a horseback expedition with his geologist parents in southern Chile (hence the name), Live Science reported. A new study, published this month in the scientific journal Nature, sheds new light on the bizarre creature.

Chilesaurus is part of a group of dinosaurs called theropods, which typically eat meat, and counts such species as T. rex, Allosaurus and Velociraptor, among its members. But this species was a vegetarian.

It has a long neck, like a brontosaurus, to help reach vegetation, but walks on its hind legs, much like its other fellow theropods.

Chilesaurus sports flat-leaf shaped teeth rather than razor sharp ones, and while it shares the robust forearms of its theropod peers, the fingers at the end are blunt instead of sharp.

"When I saw all the fragmented bones laying on the table, I thought all of them belonged to different dinosaur lineages," the study's lead researcher, Fernando Novas of the Bernardino Rivadavia Natural Sciences Museum in Buenos Aires, told Live Science. "That dinosaur is spectacular and bizarre because it combines different features belonging to these three main groups of dinosaurs."

The new species also features a small skull and large feet, again, similar to a brontosaurus. Its pubic bone also points backwards, as seen in ornithischian dinosaurs like Stegosaurus.

"Chilesaurus would be too bizarre to take seriously" if complete fossil specimens had not been found, said Thomas Carr, an associate professor of biology at Carthage College in Wisconsin

University of Birmingham researcher Martín Ezcurra explained to C-Net how such an unusual combination of features could have occurred:

Since the original discovery by Diego Suárez, scientists have unearthed more than a dozen specimens including four complete skeletons. They range in size from as small as a turkey to as long as 9.8 feet.

Chilesaurus lived about 145 million years ago during the Late Jurassic period.

The Chilesaurus fossils "say something about the limits upon dinosaur evolution," Carr said. "It just shows that we really don't know much about dinosaurs at all."

2015 is shaping up to be an exciting year for new dinosaur discoveries. In January a huge dinosaur was discovered in China, perhaps helping explain the origin of the dragon myth.

Earlier in April, decades of research resulted in Brontosaurus making its dramatic return to the official species list, after having been crossed off more than a century ago.

Check out photos of the Chilesaurus from social media below, and on LiveScience.com.

A 7-year-old and his family found an unusual new dinosaur while hiking in southern Chile http://t.co/RKUlSQADwX pic.twitter.com/Ks54pXihqb — Smithsonian Magazine (@SmithsonianMag) April 27, 2015

NEWS: a 7-year old boy discovers a new dinosaur. Meet T-Rex’s veggie cousin, Chilesaurus: http://t.co/BbkDGbb2YC pic.twitter.com/gjVBdqSvjX — Discovery Channel UK (@DiscoveryUK) April 28, 2015

Say hi to Chilesaurus, the bizarre new herbivorous dinosaur from, er Chile http://t.co/DlrIwpLzG9 (image: G. Lio) pic.twitter.com/RQdmawXU9P — Jon Tennant (@Protohedgehog) April 27, 2015