* Astronomy

Members Login
Username 
 
Password 
    Remember Me  
Home -> Astronomy News -> General news -> Dinosaurs
Post Info
TOPIC: Dinosaurs
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
Psittacosaurus gobiensis
Permalink  
 

A new psittacosaur from Inner Mongolia and the parrot-like structure and function of the psittacosaur skull
Plants or meat: That's about all that fossils ever tell palaeontologists about a dinosaur's diet. But the skull characteristics of a new species of parrot-beaked dinosaur and its associated gizzard stones indicate that the animal fed on nuts and/or seeds. These characteristics present the first solid evidence of nut-eating in any dinosaur.

"The parallels in the skull to that in parrots, the descendants of dinosaurs most famous for their nut-cracking habits, is remarkable" - Paul Sereno, a palaeontologist at the University of Chicago and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence.

Sereno and two colleagues from the People's Republic of China announce their discovery June 17 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
The palaeontologists discovered the new dinosaur, which they've named Psittacosaurus gobiensis, in the Gobi Desert of Inner Mongolia in 2001, and spent years preparing and studying the specimen. The dinosaur is approximately 110 million years old, dating to the mid-Cretaceous Period.
The quantity and size of gizzard stones in birds correlates with dietary preference. Larger, more numerous gizzard stones point to a diet of harder food, such as nuts and seeds.

"The psittacosaur at hand has a huge pile of stomach stones, more than 50, to grind away at whatever it eats, and this is totally out of proportion to its three-foot body length" - Paul Sereno.

Technically speaking, the dinosaur is also important because it displays a whole new way of chewing, which Sereno and co-authors have dubbed "inclined-angle" chewing.

"The jaws are drawn backward and upward instead of just closing or moving fore and aft. It remains to be seen whether some other plant-eating dinosaurs or other reptiles had the same mechanism" - Paul Sereno.

The unusual chewing style has solved a major mystery regarding the wear patterns on psittacosaur teeth. Psittacosaurs sported rigid skulls, but their teeth show the same sliding wear patterns as plant-eating dinosaurs with flexible skulls.

University of Chicago

-- Edited by Blobrana on Wednesday 17th of June 2009 03:17:05 PM

__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
RE: Dinosaurs
Permalink  
 

Two dinosaur skulls have fetched top prices at an auction in New York.
A giant 65-million-year-old Triceratops skull sold at Bonhams' Natural History auction for $242,000 (£148,000).
A skull from a cousin of the T. rex, the Alioramus remotus, went for $206,000 (£126,000). Both sold for almost double the original estimates.
The auction house would not reveal the buyers, but said the bones could end up as home ornaments.

Read more

__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
Permalink  
 

Diplodocus's impressive neck sweeps along the main hall of London's Natural History museum, welcoming its visitors.
Now, findings suggest that 150 million years ago the giant may have held its head higher for much of the time.
By studying the skeletons of living vertebrates, Mike Taylor, from the University of Portsmouth, and his team, reshaped the dinosaur's resting pose.

Read more

__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
Permalink  
 

The largest group of dinosaurs, known as sauropods, are usually portrayed in films, television and museums as having a low-necked, loping posture. In reality these dinosaurs were no slouchers, according to a study carried out by scientists at the University of Portsmouth.
They generally held their necks aloft like giraffes, making them up to 15m (almost 50ft) tall, concludes the study, published in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica.

Source

__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
Permalink  
 

Therizinosaur: Mystery of the Sickle-Claw Dinosaur
This show at the Museum of Northern Arizona displays real 93-million-year-old bones excavated near Big Water, in the desert landscape of southern Utah.

Read more

__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
Permalink  
 

Scientists say they have found fossils near the Colorado-New Mexico border that prove some dinosaurs survived the mass extinction that most researchers believe was caused by a meteor impact 65 million years ago. James Fassett, a scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey, says he has found evidence that a sizable population of ceratopsians and sauropods, a class of giant, dim-witted leaf-eaters such as the brachiosaurus, hung on for another 500,000 years in the [San Juan] basin.

Read more

__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
Permalink  
 

During the last 540 million years, the earth's oxygen levels have fluctuated wildly. Knowing that the dinosaurs appeared around the time when oxygen levels were at their lowest at 12%, Tomasz Owerkowicz, Ruth Elsey and James Hicks wondered how these monsters coped at such low oxygen levels. But without a ready supply of dinosaurs to test their ideas on, Owerkowicz and Hicks turned to a modern relative: the alligator.

"We knew testing the effects of different oxygen levels would work with alligators, because crocodilians have survived in their basic shape and form for 220 million years. They must be doing something right to have survived the oxygen fluctuations" - Tomasz Owerkowicz.

Choosing to start at the beginning of alligator development, the trio decided to try incubating alligator eggs at different oxygen levels, to find out how the youngsters grew and developed.

Read more

__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
Permalink  
 

Hundreds of footprints and the fossilised remains of various prehistoric animals, probably dinosaurs that lived 120 million years ago, have been discovered in the Ancash region of central Peru.
The find came when the Antamina mining company, which is owned by BHP Billiton and Xstrata, among other partners, was building a road from its camp at Yanacancha to the Conococha crossroads, in Huari province, some 400 km northeast of Lima.

Read more 

__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
Permalink  
 

In just four years a University of Portsmouth palaeontologist has discovered 48 new species from the age of the dinosaurs - while other scientists took 180 years to identify the same number
Dr Steve Sweetman's discoveries, found hidden in mud on the Isle of Wight, are around 130 million years old and shed valuable light on the poorly understood world in which well known dinosaurs roamed.

Read more 

__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
Permalink  
 

The majority of dinosaurs were peaceful, plant-eating creatures that developed the Earth's first strong social communities.
Herds, packs and families of dinosaurs were commonplace. Many fossils have been found where groups of dinosaurs died together, such as the ones which sank in the quicksand off the Isle of Wight. In Alberta, Canada, a mass grave has been discovered containing at least 300 grazing dinosaurs of all ages and sizes. This herd was swept to death by a flash flood while trying to cross a deep river. In Montana, in the USA, an even bigger herd of about 10,000 dinosaurs has been discovered. These creatures were poisoned by volcanic gases and buried in ash. Their fossilised bones stretch out in a straight line for more than a mile.

Read more

__________________
«First  <  1 … 12 13 14 15 16 … 27  >  Last»  | Page of 27  sorted by
Quick Reply

Please log in to post quick replies.
Home -> Astronomy News -> General news -> Dinosaurs


Create your own FREE Forum
Report Abuse 		Powered by ActiveBoard