A new dinosaur with nut-cracking jaws found in the Gobi desert ate like a bird—a parrot, to be exact.

The 3-foot-long (0.9-meter-long) Cretaceous creature had a boxlike skull and beaklike jaw that resemble those of modern parrots, which have beaks that can crack open nuts, a new study found.

The 110-million-year-old skull—as well as "a huge pile" of 50 stomach stones found with the fossil—suggests that the beast was chewing hard, fibrous nuts and seeds, the researchers say. Stomach stones are rocks ingested by some animals to grind food in their digestive systems.

If confirmed, Psittacosaurus gobiensis ("parrot reptile of the Gobi") and its close cousins would be the world's first known nut-eating dinosaur.

Knowing what type of food a