Aardonyx found in South Africa

(Macomb, Ill.)  The phrase 'you learn something new everyday' may be true in many cases.

But it's not every day you discover a new dinosaur.

It took a team of five people more than four years to accomplish that, and one of those team members is from right here in the Tri-States.

KHQA's Jarod Wells has more on the new dinosaur discovery Aardonyx , which was just announced yesterday.

Dr. Matthew Bonnan serves as an associate professor at Western Illinois University. He and his team began digging at a South Africa site in 2004. It wasn't until 2006 they realized they were on the verge of something big.

"The animal we call Aardonix. Aardonix means earth claw because some of the first features we found of this animal were earth encrusted claws," said WIU Paleobiologist Dr. Matthew Bonnan.

Aardonyx is from the early Jurassic period, about 195 million years ago.

"During that time is a window of time that we don't get to see very often in the age of dinosaurs, but it's an important window because it's at that point that dinosaurs are transitioning from smaller 2 legged biped animals to larger, heavier, quadrupled animals.," said Bonnan.

After those first claws were found, pieces of the skull surfaced, which Bonnan says is key to determine if you've found something new. Then came the ulna bones. That finding suggested the animal had evolved.

"This dinosaur is interesting for dinosaurs in general as well as for the big sauropods because it's an animal that, while it walked on its hind legs, it could also drop down onto all 4's on occasion. So it's showing us that transitional step from being able to walk simply on the hind legs to becoming a heaver animal and moving into lower gear, moving on all 4's," said Bonnan.

Bonnan says Aardonyx is just a glimpse at the early steps of dinosaurs becoming much larger. I asked him why this dinosaur wasn't found until now. He said as more rain and wind cause erosion, more things are uncovered. And he says more discoveries may be just around the corner.

"I can let you in on a little secret and that is that this animal isn't the only one we found. It's the most complete of the animals that we found, but we have at least 2 more dinosaurs that are, as far as we can tell, new," said Bonnan.

But many more studies and comparisons are needed before the researchers can be sure that they've discovered another new dinosaur.

Doctor Bonnan is a Biological Science professor at Western Illinois University.

He plans to offer a new dinosaur class in the fall.

For more information on Aardonyx  WIU has created a website for the project,  Aardonyx.