At the end of the Triassic period, in what is now the US state of Wyoming, there existed a strange beast with a beak like a parrot and the body of a dinosaur. It was named Beesiiwo cooowuse, a new species.

The beast has just appeared in America – (Photo: Gabriel Ugueto).

In an interview with Live Science, paleontologist David Lovelace from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (USA) said that Beesiiwo cooowuse was not particularly large, weighing only 5-7kg and about 0.6m long.

It is a herbivore, often consuming conifers, ferns… with a mouth that looks like a parrot’s beak that effectively strips and cuts leaves . It belongs to a larger group of ancient reptiles called rhynchosaurs .

Up to five fossil specimens of rhynchosaurs were unearthed in the Popo Agie Formation , a Triassic geological formation in the Bighorn Mountains, part of the Northern Rocky Mountains of the United States.

Three of the five specimens belong to the new species Beesiiwo cooowuse. Because the place where it appeared belongs to Native American lands, scientists collaborated with the Northern Arapaho Tribal Historic Preservation Office to name it in the Arapaho language above, meaning “” large lizards from the Alcova area”.

Research recently published in the scientific journal Diversity says it belongs to the group of the most ancient lizards. The strange “hybrid” appearance of this beast is not too difficult to understand, because it is a distant relative of both crocodiles and birds today.

Because the specimen includes part of the beast’s jaw, it also helps scientists recreate the landscape and environment of the area during the ancient Triassic period.