MOSCOW, May 16.Scientists from the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg State University (SPbSU) and the Kuzbass State Museum of Local Lore have described a new species of “runner” dinosaurs from the Kemerovo region, this is the first such discovery in Asia dating back to the Cretaceous period, the press service of St. Petersburg State University reported.
This dinosaur was named kiyacursor (from the Latin “runner of the Kiya River”) and became the first ceratosaur found in the Cretaceous deposits of Asia, while it was previously believed that they became extinct in this area 40 million years earlier. 
“We described a new genus and species of dinosaur based on a fragment of the skeleton of one animal, including cervical vertebrae, a humerus and a girdle element of the forelimb, as well as bones of the hind limb in the anatomical joint. This fragmentary skeleton was discovered on the banks of the Kiya River, in the Shestakovo location, which dates back to the early Cretaceous period,” said the acting. Head of the Department of Vertebrate Zoology at St. Petersburg State University Pavel Skuchas.
The remains were found in the territory of the so-called Great Siberian Refugium – a vast territory of Siberia in which forms typical of the Jurassic continued to exist in the Early Cretaceous. It was a kind of “Jurassic Park” during the Cretaceous: in this area, Jurassic relics survived that had gone extinct in many other places. 
Scientists did not extract the found bones from a piece of rock; a computed tomography scan was performed to study them at the Kolpinsky Clinical Consultative and Diagnostic Center in Kemerovo. Histological analysis of the bone tissue showed that the skeleton belonged to a young, still growing animal.
Ceratosaurs (horned lizards) are a group of predatory dinosaurs (theropods) that separated early from the common evolutionary trunk; this is the first evolutionarily successful group of predatory dinosaurs. During the process of evolution, ceratosaurs had smaller limbs. Even large dinosaurs of this species had very small front legs, while their muscles, contrary to expectations, were well developed. Ceratosaurs were widespread in the Jurassic (200-145 million years ago) and Cretaceous (145-66 million years ago) periods, their remains are found on almost all continents. During the Cretaceous period, ceratosaurs mainly lived on the southern continents. They were thought to have gone extinct in Asia at the end of the Jurassic period. 
“The discovery of Russian paleontologists became the first evidence of the habitat of Cretaceous ceratosaurs in Asia,” the press service of St. Petersburg State University emphasized.
The new genus belongs to noasaurids – small, graceful and fast-running ceratosaurs. Paleontologists from St. Petersburg State University confirmed that the new ceratosaurus also ran fast. He, like other “runners,” was found to have elongated sections of the hind limbs. Scientists compare its leg with the leg of an ostrich, a modern fast-running predatory dinosaur.
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