NEW YORK — It’s called the chicken from hell: a birdlike dinosaur about 7 feet tall and 500 pounds when it roamed western North America.
The beast got its nickname long ago at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, where a replica of its skeleton has been on display for a decade. But the species has had no scientific name. Until now.
The creature was formally introduced Wednesday as scientists published a description of it and bestowed a name: Anzu wyliei. The moniker comes from a mythological feathered demon plus the name of a Carnegie museum trustee’s grandson.
The dinosaur lived about 66 million to 68 million years ago in a hot and humid landscape, rather like the Louisiana bayou, said Matthew Lamanna of the Carnegie museum.
When it came to naming the creature, why not go with a spiffed-up version of “chicken from hell”? It turns out the phrase isn’t nearly as catchy in Latin or Greek. “All the names we came up with were just ridiculously unpronounceable,” Lamanna said.
