Meet the 'hell chicken' dino that loved fruit

When you think of dinosaurs, you probably imagine fearsome meat-eaters or plant-munchers - but scientists have now discovered one that had a rather different diet.

Named Infernogallus jamesi, the newly discovered species is believed to be the first dinosaur known to have specialised in eating fruit.

It's name translates as 'hell chicken' and the turkey-sized dino lived around 66 million years ago, during the Cretaceous era, a diverse period for dinosaurs, when T.rex and velociraptors also lived on the Earth.

Experts say it had specially adapted chewing muscles that helped it mash soft foods.

The discovery was made by a team of researchers from Stony Brook University, the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) and the North Dakota Geological Survey in North America.

They studied fossils uncovered in the US states of Montana and North Dakota, to find out more about how the dinosaur lived and what it ate.

Infernogallus was about 1.5 metres long and weighed around 12kg.

In their research, published in the journal Nature, the scientists discovered important clues in its jaw and beak, which suggest it was specially adapted to eating fruit, even thought it had no teeth.

The dinosaur's jaw muscles were arranged in an unusual way, allowing it to move its beak backwards and forwards as it chewed. It also had ridges and grooves on its beak to help mash soft foods.

Together, these features allowed it to chew fruit in a way that's similar to how some parrots eat today.

Scientists believe Infernogallus may have eaten different types of ancient fruit, including berries as well as fruits with hard stones in the middle.

They added that their discovery suggests that dinosaurs had a much wider range of diets than they previously realised.