Small dinosaur species on show

The fossils of one of the smallest dinosaurs ever discovered has been put on public display at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

Fruitadens haagarorum is 70 centimeter long and less than one kilogram in weight.

The fossils have been housed at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County since being discovered in Colorado in 1979. Scientists only recently identified it as a new species of dinosaur.

While dinosaurs are said to be the largest species on the planet, researchers say fruitadens haagarorum, weighing less than a rabbit, is one of the smallest dinosaurs known to science.

The species was a fast runner and lived in the late Jurassic period, about 150 million years ago.

Examination of it the teeth show it to have been omnivorous — eating animals as well as plants.