Fossil bones housed at a Los Angeles museum belong to the smallest dinosaur discovered in North America, scientists said Tuesday. The newly identified creature weighed less than two pounds and stood about 4 inches tall. From head to tail, it measured a little over 2 feet long, said Luis Chiappe, director of the Dinosaur Institute of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County where the fossil bones are stored. The dinosaur “would have looked like a roadrunner on steroids,” Chiappe said. It likely ate plants and hunted bugs during the late Jurassic period, about 150 million years ago. It was so tiny and fast that it probably darted between the legs of larger dinosaurs, researchers said. Chiappe and an international team recently identified and named it Fruitadens haagarorum, which incorporates where the bones were found and the name of the president of the museum's board of trustees, Paul Haaga.
