The world's first known nut-eating dinosaur?

Because you can never have enough stories about the possible links between today's birds and yesterday's dinosaurs, National Geographic has published the results of yet another study that explores this issue.

According to the story by Christine Dell'Amore, a 110-million-year-old skull, found in the Gobi Desert in 2001, had a beak-like jaw powerful enough to crack nuts. Scientists now believe the creature, Psittacosaurus gobiensis ("parrot reptile of the Gobi"), ate like a parrot because a large number of stomach stones found with the fossil suggests that it must have eaten hard, fibrous nuts and seeds.

The short video below gives a little glimpse at what the skull looks like -- now imagine a parrot this size (the creature is believed to be 3-foot-long) perching on your shoulder!