Animals Dinosaur's Slow Death Captured in 'Saddest' Fossil The slow and painful way in which a dinosaur died is revealed by the dramatic death pose of its fossilized remains.

The well-preserved remains of a new dinosaur nicknamed "Mud Dragon" likely freeze in time the death pose of the animal after its agonizing final breaths. The new species, Tongtianlong limosus, meaning "muddy dragon on the road to heaven," was discovered lying in rock that formed from what was once hardened mud. The dinosaur, described in the journal Scientific Reports, appeared to have been trying to free itself from the mud, with its wings and neck outstretched. Co-author Stephen Brusatte of the University of Edinburgh's School of Geosciences and his colleagues believe that the unfortunate dinosaur died in the throes of this struggle about 66–72 million years ago. RELATED: Dinosaur Dines on Poison Mushrooms "It is one of the most beautiful, but saddest fossils I've ever seen," Brusatte told Seeker, adding that if the dinosaur had not died stuck in mud "we wouldn't have this gorgeous fossil."

The two-legged dinosaur was an oviraptorosaur, referring to a family of feathered dinosaurs known for their short, toothless heads and sharp beaks. Some, such as Mud Dragon, had crests of bone on their heads that were probably used for displays to attract mates and to intimidate rivals. Birds like today's cassowaries feature such crests. Brusatte said that the winged, yet probably flightless, dinosaur looked like a bird. "If you saw it alive, I bet you would have just considered it to be a weird type of fairly large bird," he explained. "It was about the size of a sheep or small donkey." Despite the dinosaur's misfortune, it is a miracle that its skeleton was found. Construction workers at a building site in the Ganzhou region of southern China were blasting the ground with dynamite in order to make way for a high school. An explosion revealed Mud Dragon, coming close to blowing it to smithereens. In addition to the dinosaur's revealing death pose, its fossils reveal what ecosystems were like just before the asteroid impact of 66 million years ago that killed off all of the non-bird dinos.