An Example of New Zealand Dinosaur: The Ornithopods

The ornithopods belongs the the ornithischians, one of the two great subdivisions of dinosaurs that were dominant in the Mesozoic era. They were plant-eating(herbivorous) reptiles and they could either walk on four legs or two hind legs.

The dinosaur fossils that were find in Hawkes Bay were identified to be similar to the hypsilophodontids which lived in the late Cretaceous period 87-65 million years ago when the theropods, the carnivorous also lived at the same period.

The ornithopods( or "bird-feet") were a group of mostly small-sized ornithischians. they can move at fast speed with their long hind legs, and this physical features is their only defence against the predatory theropods. The head structures were adapted for brwosing and for cropping of vegetation. the ornithopods had fluted and expanded teeth for shearing and chewing plants.

A single fragment of an ilium(one of the pelvic bones) collected from rocks of late Cretaceous age in inand Hawkes Bay is identified to be of an ornithopod dinosaur. It is thought that the piece of New Zealand fossils belongs to a light skeleton bipedal dinosaurs and is similar to the members of the hypsilophodontid genus Dryosaurus.

This kind of dinosaur is believed to be died out in the mass extinction with other hundred species of dinosaurs.