* Astronomy

Blobrana · L

RE: Dinosaurs

Blobrana · L

Young tyrannosaurs did serious battle against each other
We all know adolescents get testy from time to time. Thank goodness we don't have young tyrannosaurs running around the neighbourhood.
In a new scientific paper, researchers from Northern Illinois University and the Burpee Museum of Natural History in Rockford report that adolescent tyrannosaurs got into some serious scraps with their peers.
The evidence can be found on Jane, the museums prized juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex, discovered in 2001 in Montana.

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Blobrana · L

Oldest T. rex relative identified
Scientists have identified the most ancient fossil relative of the predatory dinosaur Tyrannosaurus rex.
The new addition to T. rex's clan is known from a 30cm-long skull uncovered during excavations in Gloucestershire in the 1900s.
The well-preserved fossil is now held in London's Natural History Museum.

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Blobrana · L

Britain's oldest dinosaur to be released
After 210 million years of being entombed in rock, the Bristol Dinosaur is about to be released, thanks to a Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) grant of £295,000 awarded to the University of Bristol.
The Bristol Dinosaur - Thecodontosaurus antiquus - is the oldest-known dinosaur in Britain and one of the oldest in the world. When Thecodontosaurus was first discovered in 1834 it was only the fourth dinosaur ever to be discovered, anywhere.
Since discovery of the University's specimen at Tytherington Quarry in the 1970s, the fossilised remains of the Bristol Dinosaur have largely remained entombed within the rock.

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Blobrana · L

A new species of dinosaur bone is believed to have been discovered at the Cotswold Water Park.
The fossilised remains of a giant plant-eating Sauropod dinosaur identified as Cetiosauriscus was uncovered during the restoration of a site which had been quarried by Hanson Aggregates.

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Blobrana · L

Newly Discovered Ankylosaur Dinosaur
A husband and wife team of American palaeontologists has discovered a new species of dinosaur that lived 112 million years ago during the early Cretaceous of central Montana.
The new dinosaur, a species of ankylosaur, is documented in the October issue of the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences. Ankylosaurs are the biological version of an army tank. They are protected by a plate-like armour with two sets of sharp spikes on each side of the head, and a skull so thick that even 'raptors' such as Deinonychus could leave barely more than a scratch.

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Blobrana · L

Palaeontologists from the University of California, Berkeley, and the Museum of the Rockies have wiped out two species of dome-headed dinosaur, one of them named three years ago -- with great fanfare -- after Hogwarts, the school attended by Harry Potter.
Their demise comes after a three-horned dinosaur, Torosaurus, was assigned to the dustbin of history last month at the Society of Vertebrate Palaeontology meeting in the United Kingdom, the loss in recent years of quite a few duck-billed hadrosaurs and the probable disappearance of Nanotyrannus, a supposedly miniature Tyrannosaurus rex.

These dinosaurs were not separate species, as some palaeontologists claim, but different growth stages of previously named dinosaurs, according to a new study.
The confusion is traced to their bizarre head ornaments, ranging from shields and domes to horns and spikes, which changed dramatically with age and sexual maturity, making the heads of youngsters look very different from those of adults.

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Blobrana · L

A vast collection of broken dinosaur bones unearthed in southeast Utah indicates they were smashed underfoot by other dinosaurs shortly after they died, according to palaeontologists.

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Blobrana · L

Amateur fossil-hunters in France have discovered the world's largest footprints, which were left about 150 million years ago by dinosaurs ten times heavier than an elephant.
Scientists believe that the prints, which measure between 1.5m and 1.8m in diameter, may offer insights into animal behaviour at the end of the Jurassic period.

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Blobrana · L

Jurassic nest dug up in Tamil Nadu

Geologists in Tamil Nadu have stumbled upon a Jurassic treasure trove buried in the sands of a river bed. Sheer luck led them to hundreds of fossilized dinosaur eggs, perhaps 65 million years old, underneath a stream in a tiny village in Ariyalur district.
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