Missing-link dinosaur fossil discovered in South Africa

THE FOSSIL remains of a hitherto unknown species of dinosaur that is being hailed as the missing link between prehistoric two-legged http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifanimals and those that walked on four legs has been discovered in South Africa.

The researchers found the remains of two juvenile skeletons of the newly named Aardonyx celestae, a heavy, slow-moving herbivore that lived near Senekal in the northern Free State province around 950 million years ago. The Aardonyx, which had short, broad feet and a big midriff, was at least 7m long and as tall as a 6ft man even when juvenile.

Source from : http://www.irishtimes.com

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Missing-link dinosaur fossil discovered in South Africa

THE FOSSIL remains of a hitherto unknown species of dinosaur that is being hailed as the missing link between prehistoric two-legged http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifanimals and those that walked on four legs has been discovered in South Africa.

The researchers found the remains of two juvenile skeletons of the newly named Aardonyx celestae, a heavy, slow-moving herbivore that lived near Senekal in the northern Free State province around 950 million years ago. The Aardonyx, which had short, broad feet and a big midriff, was at least 7m long and as tall as a 6ft man even when juvenile.

Source from : http://www.irishtimes.com

For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.

New species of dinosaur found in US

Dinosaur Fossils of a previously undiscovered species of dinosaur have been found in slabs of Utah sandstone that were so hard that explosives had to be used to free some of the remains.

The bones found at Dinosaur National Monument belonged to a type of sauropod - long-necked plant-eaters that were said to be the largest animal ever to roam land.
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The discovery included two complete skulls from other types of sauropods - an extremely rare find, scientists said.

The fossils offer fresh insight into lives of dinosaurs some 105 million years ago, including the evolution of sauropod teeth.

Read More : http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0224/breaking5.html

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Scientists discover 'bizarre' dinosaur species in Spain

SCIENTISTS HAVE dug up what they describe as a “bizarre” new dinosaur species. It has a never-seen-before humped back but also sports skin features very like those seen in modern-day chickens.

While these two particular birds never flocked together, they do share small bumps on their limbs that look very like “quill knobs”, the place where feathers are attached.

The newly discovered dinosaur likely had some form of skin appendage akin to feathers, according to the scientists who made the discovery, described this morning in the journal Nature .

Madrid-based Dr Francisco Ortega and colleagues found an “exquisitely preserved” skeleton at Las Hoyas in Spain of a creature they named Concavenator corcovatus .

There was little doubt it was a member of the meat-eating side of the theropod dinosaur family, the big daddy of which was Tyrannosaurus Rex.

This fellow was nothing like as large as T-Rex but still measured six metres long and would have made short work of the aforementioned chicken.

What was very different, however, was its unusually designed spine. It had two modified vertebrae that gave the creature a pronounced hump, a feature not previously recorded by palaeontologists.

Then there were those quill knobs, although these have also been recorded in other dinosaur fossils. The question is, what did those quill knobs hold?

The authors say that the debate about links between the modified skin structures likely to have appeared in these knobs and modern bird feathers remained “open”. It could have been an “evolutionary novelty” the authors write, or they could represent a precursor to the feathers of chickens and other birds today.

What the discovery does do is push back the earliest appearance of these skin appendages to at least 130 million years ago when animals such as the Concavenator emerged.

“ Concavena tor shows that the combination of scale and non-scale skin appendages exhibited in present-day poultry was already present in large theropod dinosaurs 130 million years ago,” the authors write.

There also seemed to be some pride in the fact that the fossil was one of the best preserved and most complete meat-eater dinosaurs yet found in Europe. The family was previously thought to have roamed mainly the southern continents.

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Deinonychus: One of the Deadliest Dinosaurs

Although Deinonychus was only about as big as a two-passenger compact car, every inch of this dinosaur contributed to its reputation as being one of the world’s deadliest dinosaurs. When its powerful jaws opened, over 60 daggerlike teeth flashed, ready to dig into much larger dinosaurs such as Sauropelta and Tenontosaurus. Claws on its grasping hands could inflict severe damage that would have been compounded if Deinonychus decided to karate-kick unfortunate victims with one, or both, of its toe claws.

Terrible Claws
When a more complete fossil of Deinonychus was unearthed in the 1960s, paleontologists for the first time discovered that this dinosaur wielded sickle-shaped claws on the second toe of each "foot." It could retract these like a switchblade but, to preserve the sharpness of its valuable weapons, Deinonychus held the claws upright and instead walked on its third and fourth toes. Thus, the "terrible claws" didn’t drag on the ground, where they could catch or become blunt. A thick, horny sheath, similar to what covers bird and cat claws today, surrounded both its hand and foot claws.

Deinonychus Gangs

While an individual Deinonychus would have made a formidable opponent, this species probably gathered in gangs to fell especially large, meaty dinosaurs. One intriguing piece of evidence for this is a fossil site containing the remains of a brutalized Tenontosaurus surrounded by the bones of four Deinonychus dinosaurs. One interpretation is that Tenontosaurus, which could grow up to 27 feet in length, put up a good fight, but was killed and consumed by other members of the Deinonychus gang. The winners perhaps then disappeared, leaving behind their less fortunate cohorts.

Attack Techniques

Despite possible heavy Deinonychus losses during battles, this carnivore could attack in multiple ways. Since its tail was strong, it might have balanced itself on one foot while it gored and disemboweled victims with a toe claw. Given its muscular legs, it could have also jumped directly on prey, digging its claws into the victim as it landed. If multiple Deinonychus performed such moves simultaneously, it’s no wonder the 165-pound predator probably feasted on multiton beasts.


Built Like a Fierce Bird

Featherlike structures linked to close relatives of Deinonychus suggest feathers covered the dinosaur’s muscular, yet lightweight, body. The dino also shared certain anatomical features with today’s birds, such as the shape and structure of its pelvic bones. It additionally could move like a flightless bird, swerving, running and balancing itself with relative ease.

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Brachylophosaurus: The Elvis of Dinosaurs

Brachylophosaurus may be its official name, but many affectionately know this relatively "new" dinosaur as "Elvis," due to its unusual head crest that resembles the famous rock 'n roll singer’s hair. Fossil collector and paleontologist Charles Sternberg first the dinosaur described it in 1953. No other specimens existed until noted dinosaur expert Jack Horner identified another Brachylophosaurus skeleton from Montana’s Judith River Formation during the 1980s.

Head Crest

The solid boned head crest extended from the snout, laid over the top of the dinosaur’s flat head and then finished with a stylish spike at the back. Aside from the Elvis hair comparison, it also looked a bit like a modern bike racing helmet, and perhaps served a similar head-protecting function. It’s possible that Brachylophosaurus engaged in head to head pushing contests, similar to how male animals with antlers or horns today will often fight for leadership status or choice females during the mating season.

Teeth and Diet

Brachylophosaurus was a duck-billed dinosaur, but its upper beak was larger and broader than that of most hadrosaurs. Both its upper and lower beaks encased jaws set with hundreds of teeth. Their position and the jaw structure suggest Brachylophosaurus chewed plant material from side to side, as cows and horses do today. Analysis of the preserved stomach contents of one individual reveal it ate ferns, conifers, magnolias and the pollen of more than 40 different plants.

Cancer

Paleontologists in 2003 were surprised to discover the dinosaur suffered from cancer. They found at least four forms of the deadly disease in numerous Brachylophosaurus skeletons. Cancer appears to have been rare in other dinosaurs, or perhaps even limited to this species. Experts aren’t sure why, but they suspect genetic or environmental factors were to blame.

Guinness World Record Holder

Since its discovery in the early 1950s, a number of extremely well preserved Brachylophosaurus remains have been excavated. In 2003, a specimen, named Leonardo, was honored by the Guinness Book of Records as being "the best preserved dinosaur remains in the world." The certificate went on to say, "around 90 percent of the body is covered with fossilized soft tissue." Paleontologists value such dinosaur "mummies," since they provide rare tissue samples in addition to bone.

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Apatosaurus: The Dinosaur Formerly Known as Brontosaurus

When music star Prince changed his name to an unpronounceable glyph, everyone still called him "Prince." Similar confusion surrounds the dinosaur Apatosaurus, which many still refer to as "Brontosaurus." The mix-up goes back to 1879, when paleontologist Othniel Marsh mistakenly stuck a Camarasaurus head on an Apatosaurus and called it a Brontosaurus. When the mistake was discovered years later, scientists erased Brontosaurus from their books, but the incorrect name still lingered in people’s minds.

Anatomy

To add to the confusion, Apatosaurus resembled its close relative, Diplodocus. Both were gigantic plant eaters, but Apatosaurus had a much sturdier build. Its body looked like an amalgamation of other animal parts brought together in a bizarre combination. Apatosaurus possessed elephant-like "toes" at the bottom of hefty, thick, pillar-shaped limbs. A long, whipping tail held together with 82 bones extended from the dinosaur’s 24.6-ton body. At the front was a long, muscular neck capped off by a tiny head, not unlike that of a modern horse, but full of pegged teeth.

Big Body, Big Diet

The small jaws and head of Apatosaurus have puzzled scientists for decades, since it would seem biologically impossible for a dinosaur of such immense size and weight to feed itself properly through such a small orifice. Paleontologists suspect the dinosaur must have eaten all day. After hours of feasting on tree leaves, ferns, shrubs, cycads, conifers, ginkgos and other plants that were prevalent during the Late Jurassic, Apatosaurus probably waded in water to cool off and to kill parasites before taking brief, standing naps. The eating phase then likely started all over again.

A Formidable Opponent

For a large carnivorous dinosaur like Allosaurus or Tyrannosaurus, one Apatosaurus must have made quite a beast feast. Apatosaurus, with its massive body, couldn’t have run fast, so it likely stayed with others to form a protective herd. The huge herbivore was also not entirely defenseless. It could crack its long tail like a whip, causing serious damage to would-be attackers, perhaps sending them airborne. Apatosaurus also possessed claws on each of its "thumb" digits. It’s possible that this enormous dinosaur reared up on its back legs and then crashed down on its enemies, jabbing claws into them upon impact.

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Oldest Evidence of Dinosaurs in Footprints: Dinosaur Lineage Emerged Soon After Massive Permian Extinction

The oldest evidence of the dinosaur lineage -- fossilized tracks -- is described in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Just one or two million years after the massive Permian-Triassic extinction, an animal smaller than a house cat walked across fine mud in what is now Poland.

This fossilized trackway places the very closest relatives of dinosaurs on Earth about 250 million years ago -- 5 to 9 million years earlier than previously described fossilized skeletal material has indicated. The paper also described the 246-million-year-old Sphingopus footprints, the oldest evidence of a bipedal and large-bodied dinosaur.

"We see the closest dinosaur cousins immediately after the worst mass extinction," says Stephen Brusatte, a graduate student affiliated with the Division of Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History. "The biggest crisis in the history of life also created one of the greatest opportunities in the history of life by emptying the landscape and making it possible for dinosaurs to evolve."

The new paper analyzes three sets of footprints from three different sites in the Holy Cross Mountains of central Poland. The sites, all quarries within a 25-mile radius of each other, are windows into three ecosystems because they represent different times periods. The Stryczowice trackway is the oldest at 250 million years. The Baranów trackway is the most recent at 246 million years of age while the Wióry trackway is sandwiched in time between the others.

Because footprints are only an imprint of a small part of the skeleton, identification of trackmakers is often tricky. Luckily, dinosaurs have a very distinctive gait, especially when compared to their diapsid relatives (the evolutionary group that includes birds, reptiles, and extinct lineages) like crocodiles and lizards. While lizards and crocodiles have a splayed walking style, dinosaurs place their two feet closer together. The footprints at all three Polish sites show this feature as well as indisputable dinosaur-like features, including three prominent central toes and reduced outer two toes, a parallel alignment of these three digits (a bunched foot), and a straight back edge of footprints, additional evidence of a dinosaur-like simple hinged ankle.

Because all of these features are seen in footprints at the oldest site, Brusatte and colleagues conclude that the Stryczowice prints -- which are only a few centimeters in length -- are the oldest evidence of the dinosaur lineage. These dinosaurs, though, are considered "stem dinosaurs," or the immediate relatives of dinosaurs not part of the slightly more derived clade that technically defines dinosaurs. Also, this animal did walk on all four limbs, an abnormal posture for early dinosaurs and their close relatives, although it appears that its forelimbs were already being reduced to more dinosaur-like proportions since the footprints overstep handprints.

The Baranów and Wióry trackways show changes early in the evolutionary history of dinosaurs. Wióry at 248-249 million years ago shows slight diversification in the types of tracks, but all tracks remain quadrupedal. Footprints from Baranów at 246 million years ago, however, may be the earliest evidence of moderately large-bodied and bipedal true dinosaurs. These tracks, which are called Sphingopus, are 15 centimeters long.

"Poland is a new frontier for understanding the earliest evolution of dinosaurs," says Grzegorz Niedźwiedzki of the University of Warsaw and the Polish Academy of Sciences, who led the project and has been excavating footprints from the three sites for nearly a decade. "It used to be that most of the important fossils were from Argentina or the southwestern U.S., but in Poland we have several sites that yield footprints and bones from the oldest dinosaurs and their closest cousins, stretching throughout the entire Triassic Period."

Finally, although the dinosaur group emerged soon after the Permian extinction, dinosaur-like tracks are rare in the footprint assemblages, representing only 2-3 percent of the prints discovered as opposed to 40-50 percent for crocodile-like archosaurs. Dinosaurs became more abundant tens of millions of years later.

"For the first 20-50 million years of dinosaur history, dinosaurs and their closest relatives were living in the shadow of their much more diverse, successful, and abundant crocodile-like cousins," says Brusatte. "The oldest dinosaurs were small and rare."

In addition to Brusatte and Niedźwiedzki, Richard Butler of the Bayerische Staatssammlung für Paläontologie und Geologie in Germany was an author of the paper. Brusatte is also affiliated with Columbia University. The research was funded in part by the National Science Foundation, the Percy Sladen Fund, the Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship, and the University of Warsaw.

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Fires and Floods Key to Dinosaur Island Secrets

Fires and floods which raged across the Isle of Wight some 130 million years ago made the island the richest source of pick 'n' mix dinosaur remains of this age anywhere in the world.

A new study has revealed the Island's once violent weather explains why thousands of tiny dinosaur teeth and bones lie buried alongside the huge bones of their gigantic relatives.

The research was carried out by University of Portsmouth palaeontologist Dr Steve Sweetman and Dr Allan Insole from the University of Bristol. It is published in the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology.

"When a fire was rapidly followed by an intense flood a snapshot of life on the Isle of Wight 130 million years ago was taken and preserved for us to see today, making the Isle of Wight one of the most important dinosaur sites in the world. Apart from the sheer diversity of dinosaurs found on the island we also have the remains of the animals and plants that lived with them," Dr Sweetman said.

"During the Early Cretaceous when dinosaurs roamed, the climate was much warmer than today. This was partly to do with the geographical position of the Isle of Wight at the time -- the latitude was roughly where Gibraltar is now -- but also reflects the extreme greenhouse conditions of that era.

"Rainfall occurred all year round but during the summer months, when temperatures soared to between 36 -- 40o C, evaporation exceeded rainfall causing drought conditions. At these times vegetation became parched leaving it vulnerable to fires caused by lightning strike.

"Occasionally very heavy rain would follow electrical storms and wild fires causing flash floods. These swept up all loose objects in their path, swallowed complete dinosaur skeletons and eroded floodplain sediments. The more debris and sediment the water collected the thicker and thicker it became until eventually it was like mixed concrete."

This chaotic mixture, in which most of the skeletons became jumbled up, was then deposited in hollows to form what are now known as the island's plant debris beds. They are so called because they contain large amounts of scorched and unburned plant fossils ranging in size from large logs to tiny fragments of leaves. The rotting plants in these beds removed oxygen providing ideal conditions for the preservation of bones.

Dr Sweetman said: "On the Isle of Wight you get a complete muddle of the smallest fossils blended with the biggest, nothing quite like it has been seen anywhere else in the world. The plant debris beds and the mixture of fossils they contain are unique to the island."

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Oldest Dinosaur Embryos Give Insights Into Infancy and Growth

After sitting in collections for nearly 30 years, some remarkably well-preserved dinosaur eggs and their contents are offering new insights into the infancy and growth of early dinosaurs. They represent the oldest embryos of any land-dwelling vertebrate ever found.

The eggs, found in 1976 in South Africa, date from the early part of the Jurassic Period, 190 million years ago. They belong to Massospondylus (măs-ō-spŏn-dīl-ŭs), a member of a group of dinosaurs known as prosauropods that are the ancestors to the later sauropods -- the large, four-legged dinosaurs with long necks, typified by the popular ' Brontosaurus' and Diplodocus.

Dr. Robert Reisz of the University of Toronto and his colleagues worked on these fossils, and it was only through modern preparation techniques that these findings were brought to light. One of Dr. Reisz's co-authors, research assistant Diane Scott, prepared the delicate fossils under high-powered microscopes and compiled the illustrations. "I don't think anybody else could have done this job," says Dr. Reisz.

These eggs contain the oldest known embryos of dinosaurs. In fact, they are the oldest of any land-dwelling backboned animal. The preservation of the embryos is exquisite, permitting a complete reconstruction of the skeleton and detailed interpretations of the anatomy.

The level of ossification -- how much of the skeleton has turned to bone -- reveals that the embryos were close to hatching. The fossils also reveal that the future hatchlings would have been oddly proportioned and would have looked very different from the adults of the species.

The 20 cm (8 in.) embryos were quadrupedal (they walked on all four legs), with relatively long front limbs and disproportionately large heads. In contrast, the 5 m (16.5 ft) long adults had relatively tiny heads and long necks; they mostly likely were bipedal, given that their forelimbs are much shorter than their hind limbs. This implies that as the dinosaurs matured, their necks and hind limbs grew much faster than their forelimbs and head. Later dinosaurs in this group, the sauropods, had body proportions more similar to those of the Massospondylus embryos.

In at least one way, Massospondylus development resembles that of humans; infancy is awkward, and a more erect stance and evenly proportioned body only come later.

There may be another way that Massospondylus infancy was similar to that of humans. The embryos lack teeth and this, combined with the awkward body proportions, suggests that the hatchlings may have required parental care. If true, these fossils also document the oldest record of parental care.

"This project opens an exciting window into the early history and evolution of dinosaurs," says Reisz. "Prosauropods are the first dinosaurs to diversify extensively, and they quickly became the most widely spread group, so their biology is particularly interesting as they represent in many ways the dawn of the age of dinosaurs."

The eggs and embryos are on display at the Royal Ontario Museum in an exhibit entitled, "Dinosaur Eggs and Babies: Remarkable Fossils from South Africa." Dr. David Evans, one of the co-authors of this research, is curator at that museum.

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Colossal pliosaur fossil emerges from rock

The innermost secrets of a colossal "sea monster" skull are being revealed by one of the UK's most powerful CT scanner.

The x-rays are helping to build up a 3D picture of this ferocious predator, called a pliosaur, which terrorised the oceans 150 million years ago.

The 2.4m-long fossil skull was recently unearthed along the UK's Jurassic coast, and is thought to belong to one of the biggest pliosaurs ever found.

The scans could establish if the giant is a species that is new to science.

But before the fossil is scanned, it has to be removed from its rocky casing. Here fossil preparator Scott Moore-Fay explains how this work is carried out.


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Colossal pliosaur fossil gets 3D CT scan

The innermost secrets of a colossal "sea monster" skull are being revealed by the one of the UK's most powerful CT scanners.

The x-rays are helping to build up a 3D picture of this ferocious predator, called a pliosaur, which terrorised the oceans 150 million years ago.

The 2.4m-long fossil skull was recently unearthed along the UK's Jurassic coast, and is thought to belong to one of the biggest pliosaurs ever found.

The scans could establish if the giant is a species that is new to science.

Here, University of Southampton engineer Dr Mark Mavrogordato explains how the CT scanner works.


Source from : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12041855

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Insect fossil discovery at Museum of Somerset

Hundreds of insect fossils dating from the Jurassic period have been found at the Museum of Somerset after they were apparently forgotten for nearly 100 years.

Geologist Charles Moore excavated them in the 1800s but they were put in storage in 1915 and never recovered.

They were rediscovered at the museum in Taunton as part of a project to restore Moore's entire fossil collection.

The missing specimens were found by the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution (BRLSI).

It is believed Moore collected up to 1,000 insect specimens although researchers are still making their way through the collection to ascertain the exact number.

The BRLSI received £62,000 in funding from the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation to carry out a three-year research and restoration programme of Moore's collection.

Source from : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-13353836

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Stuck-osaurus: Mass grave unearthed of young dinosaurs who died 90million years ago after getting trapped in the mud

Scientists have unearthed a mass grave of young dinosaurs that became trapped in mud 90 million years ago.

Fossilised skeletons of more than 25 of the bird-like animals were discovered at one site in northern China's Gobi Desert.

The creatures appear to have strayed into the boggy margins of a lake and perished as they struggled to escape.

Evidence suggests their legs were stuck deep into the mud, and one individual had tumbled on top of another.

The discovery sheds light on dinosaur social behaviour, indicating that juvenile individuals were left to fend for themselves when adults were preoccupied with nesting or brooding.

Source from : http://www.dailymail.co.uk

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'Missing link' fossil suggests birds ARE descended from dinosaurs after all

Fossil-hunters may have found the definitive 'missing link' between dinosaurs and birds, it was revealed today.

The creature is a small plant-eating dinosaur with a toothless beak, stunted arms, and unusual hands.

'Limusaurus inextricabilis' had key features that indicate a half-way point in the transition from dinosaurs to birds.

Dinosaurs vanished from the face of the Earth at the end of the Cretaceous period 65 million years ago. But some experts believe they live on as birds.

Evidence includes the fact two-legged theropod dinosaurs, such as Tyrannosaurus rex had bird-like feet, a bird-like pelvis, and a 'wishbone' typical of birds.

Like birds, they also had hollow bones that may have contained air sacs used in breathing. Some theropods are also believed to have sported primitive feathers.

In addition, preserved protein recently discovered in dinosaur bones appears to be structurally similar to that of modern chickens.

However, there are problems with the dino-bird theory.

Oregon State University recently the thigh bone, which is fixed in birds, stops their lung collapsing, allowing the breathing capacity for flight.

Every other animal that has walked on land, including humans and theropod dinosaurs had a moveable thigh bone.
Also the bird hand, now reduced and embedded in the wing, does not look as if it was derived from a theropod dinosaur hand.

Birds and theropods seem to have retained a different selection of fingers from a five-fingered ancestor.

Until now scientists have believed that while theropods kept the first, second and third fingers, birds held onto the middle three fingers - the second, third and fourth digits.

If birds really are descended from theropod dinosaurs, this should not be the case.

But Limusaurus had hands different from those of any other theropod and may provide a solution to this part of the puzzle.

It had a shrunken first digit alongside more fully developed second, third and fourth fingers.

Source from : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1193689/Missing-link-fossil-suggests-birds-ARE-descended-dinosaurs-all.html

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New threat of mass extinction, 'marine wipeout'

WE ARE living through a massive species extinction event that rivals the one that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. But while an asteroid collision likely did in the dinos, today’s extinctions are a direct consequence of human activity, writes DICK AHLSTROM , Science Editor

Whatever the cause, the result could be a complete collapse of the marine ecosystem, according to new research from the US. Far from being no more than a theory, they warn that two marine wipe-outs have occurred in the past and we may be triggering a third.

Researchers from Brown University and the University of Washington catalogued the results of the two earlier extinction events by searching the fossil record. Their study of an extinct distant relative of today’s squid and cuttlefish showed just what can happen if you start messing with the marine food web, publishing the details in the journal Geology .

“It is definitely a cautionary tale because we know it has happened at least twice before,” states the paper’s lead author, Prof Jessica Whiteside, an assistant professor of geological sciences at Brown.

The research also showed that once you knock the marine ecosystem out of sync, it can take millions of years to put it right again.

The Permian geologic period came to an end in a massive extinction event about 250 million years ago, giving way to the Triassic period. The Triassic drew to a close about 200 million years ago due to a second major extinction event that heralded the start of the Jurassic period, authors say. The Permian-Triassic event was likely brought on by huge volcanic events that sent greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, knocking out land species and about 90 per cent of all marine species.

The Triassic-Jurassic event was also probably the result of powerful volcanism, something that threw the atmospheric and oceanic carbon cycle out of kilter to cause “chaotic carbon episodes” and trigger the extinction of 72 per cent of marine species.

The research team studied carbon isotopes from these periods, available today in rocks dug out of western Canada. The rocks also yielded up fossils that showed what was going on with the mix of marine life over a 50 million year period across these geologic periods.

The focus was on ammonoids, now extinct predatory squid-like organisms that either floated along waiting for a passing meal or actively moving about in pursuit of prey. Both of these predators were substantially knocked out during the mass extinctions, the authors say, leaving a significant gap in the overall predator/prey food web.

Most links in the marine food chain then and now are occupied by multiple species who predate whatever becomes available in their particular niche. This provides what biologists refer to as “ecological redundancy”. That ecological redundancy at the ammonoid level was lost, the authors argue. And this in turn triggered the marine ecosystem collapse seen in the two extinction events. The authors say theirs is the first research paper to make a direct link between lost ecological redundancy and ecosystem collapse.

Now fast-forward to today, to when the world’s oceans are effectively under siege, the researchers argue. A whole range of top predators are in sharp decline including cod, bluefin tuna, swordfish and sharks. They believe such a major disturbance of ecological redundancy at this level could precipitate species collapse and bring on a new extinction event.

Five years ago a UN report warned of the dangers of biodiversity loss. “In effect we are currently responsible for the sixth major extinction event in the history of the Earth, and the greatest since the dinosaurs disappeared 65 million years ago,” the report claims.

The research team only links two of the past five mass extinctions to ecological redundancy, and possibly the current event, assuming the marine ecosystem does go sharply into decline.

They warn that once lost, ecological diversity can take a long time to recover with a 10 million year wait before it was re-established after the Permian and Triassic events, they say.

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Scientists discover tiny, one-fingered relative of T-Rex

It was a meat eater and part of the same family that produced the ferocious Tyrannosaurus Rex. But the newcomer, Linhenykus monodactylus , did not cut quite the same dash as its larger cousin.

“This tiny insectivorous dinosaur lived roughly 80 million years ago, and would have weighed about one pound [450g], measured about 15 inches [40cm] from head to tail and reached to just below the average person’s knee,” said University College Dublin’s Dr David Hone, who was part of the team that discovered it.

Dr Hone explained how the fossil – dug out of rocks on the border between Mongolia and China – got its name. “ Linhenykus means “claw from Linhe”, and Linhe is the city in Inner Mongolia near where the specimen was found. And monodactylus means “one-fingered”, he said.

It probably weighed no more than a large parrot, according to the researchers, who were led by Prof Xing Xu from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.

Details of the find were published yesterday afternoon in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The find did not amount to much but there was enough to identify the animal as a previously unknown theropod – a type of carnivorous beast that walked on two strong back legs but had quite weak front limbs.

All theropod species discovered up until now sported three clawed fingers on each limb, typically with one large and two small fingers. But Linhenykus broke the mould with just a single clawed finger.

It appeared that the two smaller fingers seen in theropod relatives had atrophied in Linhenykus , Dr Hone said.

The dig location is in a protected Chinese national park that has proven to be a particularly rich source of dinosaur fossils. The rocks bearing the fossilised bones were from the Upper Cretaceous Wulansuhai formation, which dates the fossils to between 75 million and 84 million years old.

Scientists are interested in animals like Linhenykus because modern birds are believed to have evolved from the theropods.

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dinosaurs Research Paper 1

Aurora dinosaurs research papers

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Chinese 'dinosaur city' reshapes understanding of prehistoric era

It must have been an awe-inspiring sight: four metres tall and weighing six tonnes. Its sharp teeth delivered a bone-crushing bite. Yet even "the tyrant from Zhucheng" reached its inevitable, ignominious end. Over time, half its skull was torn from its skeleton and jumbled with the bones of less imposing creatures at this site in what is now China's eastern Shandong province.

Last month – tens of millions of years later – researchers resurrected Zhuchengtyrannus magnus. Impressive though the reconstruction was, it was just one of a succession of fossil discoveries that have put this "dinosaur city" on the map.

Zhucheng's early Cretaceous relics, Liaoning's feathered dinosaurs and Xinjiang's wealth of Jurassic material are among the Chinese treasure troves reshaping our understanding of ancient life on Earth, and the processes that have created the world around us. "Some of the new material from China is breathtaking," said Dr Paul Barrett, a palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum. "Firstly, the sheer number of new species is impressive. Secondly, some of the dinosaurs that have been discovered have had major impacts on evolutionary debates."

Local legend in Zhucheng tells of battling black and white dragons: tales rooted, perhaps, in the mighty jaws and femurs found by farmers. For years, residents boiled the "dragon bones" in medicinal soups or ground them into powder.

Excavations began here in the 60s and their pace has dramatically accelerated in recent years as China has poured vast amounts of money into scientific research. More than 50 tonnes of dinosaur fossils have emerged from 30 sites around the town. One remarkable 300-metre-long bone bed has yielded more than 15,000 items. Another site is pitted with 3,000 footprints.

Making sense of it all are dinosaur hunters such as Professor Xu Xing and his colleagues at the Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Xu has identified more than 30 dinosaurs and co-authored papers naming another 20 or so. "I would say I am one of the luckiest people in the world because I have continued finding great species. That makes you even more addicted; it's like smoking," he confided.

Dr David Hone, of University College Dublin, who worked with Xu for three years and led the Zhuchengtyrannus magnus research, said: "It is a phenomenal achievement, but often it is what he's done [after identification] that is the measure of the real quality of his research." In particular, Xu's work on feathered dinosaurs has shed new light on how the creatures evolved into birds. Xu was "the right person in the right place at the right time", Hone added.

It did not seem that way to Xu for many years. While western peers were modelling Plasticine stegosaurs, he grew up in a remote area of north-western Xinjiang, where education was poor. He had never heard of dinosaurs and hoped to become a physicist – but when he won a rare place at Peking University, he was assigned to palaeontology.

"Even our teacher didn't know what it was, so we thought it must be something very modern. When I found out I was very disappointed," he recalled. It took him years to learn to love his work, but now he enthuses over "beautiful", "amazing" and "bizarre" finds.

"This one might be a new dinosaur – we are trying to confirm," he explained as he compared images of skulls from various species to the squished example facing him in a Shandong museum. Boasting huge, shark-like teeth and a lengthy tail, the creature – discovered in Liaoning province – was unusually large for a feathered dinosaur. It could also, he thought, be relatively primitive.

That specimen was largely intact, but at sites such as Zhucheng's long bone bed, researchers face what Xu calls a "death sandwich". Similar species may be in the same spot; features can be distorted beyond recognition. Deciphering it is like completing multiple jigsaw puzzles – except that many pieces are missing; those that remain are mixed together; and you may or may not have the right pictures to help you. Even new features may not indicate a new species; just a different developmental stage of an existing one.

Those are not the only challenges faced by China's palaeontologists. Regulations on fossil sales and smuggling, introduced over the past decade, have curbed but not halted the trade – hardly surprising when specimens can be worth many times a farmer's annual income. Officials hope an embryonic dinosaur tourism industry will encourage residents to report finds rather than sell them. "Zhucheng's dinosaurs have become world-class stars," said Wang Kebai, the official leading its ambitious tourism projects. People love the mystery of dinosaurs, he said, and the thrill of new discoveries.

Even palaeontology's reluctant recruit admits that studying them for so long has shaped his view of the world.

"These creatures lived millions of years ago; some of them were gigantic," mused Xu. "Examining them, you sometimes feel that humans have a lot of control over nature and other things: but finally, we will all be bones."

Source from :http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/may/13/chinese-dinosaur-city-prehistoric-era

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'The World's Largest Dinosaurs' shares new theories about pre-history's heavy-weight herbivores

This spring, the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) is hoping to nudge viewers away from the thrilling (and fictional) “Jurassic Park” approach to dinosaurs, toward a more reasonable and informed appreciation.

Then again, how rational can you be around a 150-ft-long animal whose name means “terrible lizard?”

The museum is having it both ways in “The World’s Largest Dinosaurs.” It preserves the OMG factor, a significant part of their appeal, even as it presents new theories about how they led their big lives.

Next to toothy, meat-eating horror shows like T-rex, Velociraptor and Ceratosaurus, the vegetarian sauropods of this exhibit don’t look so terrible.

Nevertheless, the show begins dramatically in a darkened, leafy anteroom, where visitors get a dim glimpse of a supersized Argentinosaurus overhead, just a great stretch of neck and a head with a wide-eyed face. A mature Argentinosaurus, the biggest dinosaur discovered so far, weighed 90 tons (180,000 lbs.).

In the next room, the lights come up and science takes over, but not completely. A sleek, lifelike pinkish-skinned 60-ft. Mamenchisaurus loiters in the center of the room.

“She” has a transparent mid-section that is described in an audio-visual presentation. Viewers can take seats nearby. Various inner organs, like lungs and heart, are highlighted, as an overhead text describes how they function.

All of the dinosaurs in the exhibit are sauropods, a term that characterizes their staggering size as well as their diet, which was green. The exhibit has a femur or leg-bone of a scrawny 22-ton Camerasaurus — it is 6-feet-tall.

“The World’s Largest Dinosaurs” also delivers new findings about the life and times of sauropods, developed from two sources: fossil remains and inferential theorizing. The latter refers to well-educated guesses based on the biology of birds and reptiles, the closest living relatives of dinosaurs.

Visitors, especially kids, are encouraged to perform research of their own at hands-on stations. One such station is outfitted with a pump and is designed to give a participant some sense of what it took to push blood up the neck of a long-necked dinosaur.

Unlike a human brain, the tiny brain of such animals didn’t require much. Aparosaurus, one of the larger sauropods, had just a 4-ounce brain, as compared to a typical 48-oz human brain.

Food and reproduction occupied much of a sauropod’s day. A specimen like the Mamenchisaurus ate 1,000 lbs of horsetails, ginkgo leaves, and other vegetation. A Lucite container holds a day’s nosh. It’s a lot. A long neck was a big help getting at tree-top foliage.

Dinosaurs laid eggs, like birds and nearly all reptiles. Even the largest dinosaurs produced relatively small eggs. Babies, who looked after themselves with little to no adult oversight, grew at an unprecedented rate.

The survival rate was low. Healthy females regularly deposited dozens of eggs in shallow depressions scooped out of soft earth.

The final section of the show is a sample dig pit, modeled after the Howe Quarry in Wyoming, where AMNH has recovered 4,000 sauropod fossils, has dino femurs and fibulas and other bones for visitors to unearth and examine.


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ANIMAL ARMAGEDDON

From the very beginning, Earth and the evolution of its inhabitants have been plagued by continual destruction and chaos. How, out of this cyclical devastation, has human life gotten to where it is today? And could another mass extinction be part of our future?

Using cutting edge research, the latest scientific theories and incredible CGI to bring prehistoric animals back to life, Animal Armageddon — an eight-part mini-series — transports viewers to the center of the most horrific disasters ever to rock our planet.

From a cosmic gamma ray burst bombarding the atmosphere, triggering the very first mass extinction, to an asteroid the size of Mount Everest slamming into the Yucatan, killing off the dinosaurs, these terrible natural events caused unparalleled devastation. Throughout the 600-million-year history of animal existence, some 99.9 percent of all animal life that has ever lived is now extinct.

Animal Armageddon sheds light on the evolution and extinction of these amazing creatures. From giant predatory sea monsters like the straight-shelled nautiloid, to vicious dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurs rex, to giant mammals like the mastodon, Animal Armageddon outlines the impact nature's wrath had on these animals and the life forms that followed.

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T. Rex Ancestor Brought to Light

Fossil hunters in China said they have found the earliest known forerunner of the Tyrannosaurus rex, the mighty flesh-ripping dinosaur beloved of children and Hollywood.

Uncovered in Wucaiwan in the western province of Xinjiang, the species has been dubbed Guanlong wucaii — "crowned dragon of the five-colored rocks," a reference to the tint of the earth in which it was found.

It hails from the Late Jurassic period, around 161 million to 156 million years ago, according to the discoverers, led by Xu Xing of the Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology in Beijing.

By comparison, the T. rex lived much later, in the Late Cretaceous era, enjoying a 20-million-year reign of terror that ended with the extinction of the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago.

Nose to tail, T. rex measured up to 13 meters (42.25 feet) in length, whereas the best preserved of the two fossils unearthed in Wucaiwan suggest a creature that was about three meters (10 feet) long.

Despite these differences, the "crowned dragon" shows all the key ancestral hallmarks of the tyrannosaurids.

It shares their enlarged skull, two powerful rear feet, stubby forelimbs that end in a powerful three-fingered hand, and long, blade-like teeth that suggests it, too, was a predator to be reckoned with.

But the "primitive" look of the pelvis also suggests something else, said Xu. It supports a theory, first put forward in the 1990s, that the tyrannosaurids, despite their great size, evolved from a species of swift, small-bodied dinosaurs called coelurosaurs.

Guanlong also had a highly elaborate, fragile crest, a "crown" that ran almost the entirely length of its long upper jaw.

This crest is "surprising," given that it would have surely hampered the beast in its hunt for food, the authors said.

They speculated that it was an ornament that may have been used to lure a mate or show off status. Many vertebrate species today use these tools, such as peacocks with their tails and elks with their antlers, even if the device carries a cost in movement.

Xu has earned a reputation for being the world's most successful fossil finder, unearthing extraordinary specimens that have shed light in particular on birds, spurring the theory that modern birds are the descendants of dinosaurs.

Most of his big finds have come from lake deposits in Liaoning province, in the northeast of China, that are between 128 and 110 million years old.

The study is published on Thursday in Nature, the British weekly science journal.

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Dwarf Dino Fossils Found

iscovered a species that evolved into a dwarf, ending up only about one-third the size of its closest known relatives.

The fossils were of a four-legged plant-eater that was no lap dog: It measured about 20 feet from its snout to the tip of its long tail and it weighed about a ton.

But next to its close evolutionary cousin Camarasaurus, a well-known beast that stretched some 59 feet long, this guy was a runt.

What happened?

The researchers say it's a case of island dwarfism, the tendency of big species to shrink over time when they find themselves on an island. It's well-known among mammals, as with fossil elephants only about three feet tall, found in Sicily and elsewhere.

iscovered a species that evolved into a dwarf, ending up only about one-third the size of its closest known relatives.

The fossils were of a four-legged plant-eater that was no lap dog: It measured about 20 feet from its snout to the tip of its long tail and it weighed about a ton.

But next to its close evolutionary cousin Camarasaurus, a well-known beast that stretched some 59 feet long, this guy was a runt.

Scientists think that in an environment of limited resources, smaller body size becomes an advantage, and so captive populations shrink in body size over long periods of time.

The new creature is the best documented case of island dwarfism among dinosaurs, said P. Martin Sander, a paleontologist at the University of Bonn in Germany and lead author of a report in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

The creature, dubbed Europasaurus holgeri, lived 154 million years ago in what is now northern Germany.

At that time, the region was covered by shallow seas, and the creature evidently lived on an island, Sander said.

It's not clear whether a bigger ancestor reached the island from elsewhere and founded a colony, or an existing population found itself isolated by rising sea levels, he said.

Sander, who specializes in the microscopic structure of bone, got his first look at the fossils in 2003 after an amateur bone hunter found them in a quarry.

Sander and other scientists initially thought they were from juvenile animals, but details of the bone structure showed they came from adults.

Eventually the scientists realized they had remains from more than 11 animals of varying ages, including at least one fully grown adult.

The bone analysis also showed that Europasaurus grew more slowly than bigger dinosaurs. Its small size was a normal growth pattern for the species and not the result of disease, Sander said.

That has been a point of contention in trying to explain the so-called hobbits of Indonesia, fossil remains that suggest a dwarf species of humans lived on a remote island thousands of years ago.

Mark Norell, a dinosaur expert at the American Museum of Natural History, said island dwarfism had been talked about for the hobbits and many animals, and "to find it in dinosaurs is pretty neat." The new paper presents the best case for the phenomenon in a dinosaur, he said.

Jeffrey Wilson, assistant professor of geological sciences at the University of Michigan, called the discovery exciting, and not just for the dwarfism. Europasaurus is a kind of long-necked dinosaur called a sauropod, and Wilson said the newly reported fossils are the best sauropod remains in Europe from the time period.


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Fossil hunters descend on Bristol

More than 1,000 fossil hunters are descending on Bristol for an international conference this week.

It is the first time the Society of Vertebrate Palaeontology will hold its annual meeting outside North America.

The four day conference will see evidence of feathered dinosaurs, ancient giraffes, and bison from the bottom of the North Sea.

Prof Mike Benton, chairman of the host committee, said: "This will be a momentous meeting for the society."

The bones of a Thecodontosaurus were found near Bristol during the 1970s



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Bristol dinosaur find marked at Arnos Vale Cemetery

A unique dinosaur skeleton unearthed in Bristol more than 175 years ago is being celebrated in the city.

In 1834 fossilised remains initially thought to be a reptile, were found on Durdham Downs by quarry workers.

But they were identified in 1836 as an entirely new species of dinosaur - thecodontosaurus - by geologists Samuel Stutchbury and Henry Riley.

Arnos Vale Cemetery in Bristol is marking the discovery and the work of Samuel Stutchbury, who is buried there.

The cemetery has teamed up with the Bristol Dinosaur Project to host a family day on 22 February and a public lecture on 24 February.

It's thought the thecodontosaurus - which means socket-toothed dinosaur - was washed into a limestone cave some 200-250 million years ago when the Bristol area was roamed by Triassic dinosaurs.

Some of the dinosaurs bones found in 1834 are now on display at Bristol's City Museum and Art Gallery.

At the Arnos Vale events, people will be able to find out more about the dinosaur and the Bristolian scientist who discovered it.

Samuel Stutchbury was the curator of the Bristol Instition, which went on to become the city's museum, and a contemporary of Charles Darwin, to whom he lent fossils for study.

The February events are part of a series running throughout the year which mark the lives and achievements of people remembered or buried at the cemetery.

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How Tropical Inc helps rare animals of the Midlands

This little creature is the latest addition to a huge menagerie of animals collected by Stephen Rowlands and his helpers at Tropical Inc.

The Oldbury not-for-profit organisation specialises in caring for and re-homing unusual creatures abandoned or unwanted in the West Midlands.

It also hosts interactive talks for children, grown-ups and educational groups.

Stephen, aged 26, has been studying animals all his academic life and trained as a specialist in reptiles.

The group has just taken on a baby albino wallaby, Millie, which Stephen has to keep with him 24 hours a day.

“The wallaby is lovely and follows you around like a dog. We keep him in a sack a lot of the time because he would normally still be in his mother’s pouch.

“I take him shopping with me to Tesco, and when he pops his head out of the bag, because he’s white, people think he’s a big rabbit.”

He said Baby the bush baby was also a new addition after he was given to Tropical Inc by a London couple who split up and could no longer look after him.

Tropical Inc is currently looking after about 50 animals including parrots, skunks, meerkats, snakes and lizards, many of which appear in the educational shows.

“We do things all over the country for parties as well as schools and colleges,” Stephen said.

“I’ve even taken the animals to demonstrate to young offenders. We show animals behaving in a natural way as they do in the wild, which makes for some fun.”

Source from:

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A Geographic look at bushmeat hunting in DRCongo.

Are there safe sites for forest animals in DR Congo ? It is, after all, a country of many protected areas. Are these parks and reserves safe?

Information from the recent war and post war period is not reassuring. Protected areas were/are very permeable to arms and bushmeat trafficking.

The very fact that there are people to quote, means that there are people fighting to assert the integrity of these areas. Major setbacks have been followed by major steps forward.

We CAN have a future WITH Congo’s forest animals. The promise lies in formal protected areas. Although far from problem-free, these can make a big difference that we are now beginning to witness. How so?

1) There is a legal basis to arrest and prosecute not only elephant poachers but bushmeat hunters in protected areas.
2) There is a national institutional structure with wardens and park guards, the Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature (ICCN).
3) There is an international interest in Congolese protected areas and nature conservation. This international interest brought key protected areas through war with borders intact and animals inside. And it is that international interest that is allowing ICCN and the protected areas to reconstitute post-war.
4) Finally: new areas. There are remote areas that retain rich faunas. The ICCN is committed to protect these. Effective protection will depend upon discovery of the most crucial areas and effective support from local populations. Then national and international backing must be brought to these areas so that ICCN can build a park infrastructure from ground up.

Source from : http://www.bonoboincongo.com/2008/03/09/bushmeat-4-tl2-in-the-middle/

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Rare Animals

This world is full of fascinating creatures that walk the land, swim the seas and soar to the skies. These creatures are divided by kingdoms and all in all there are four; the protista, fungi, plantae and last but definitely not the least, the kingdom animalia. With over 2 million species called animals, kingdom animalia is the largest compared to the three kingdoms. Bears, spiders, sharks are just one of the many species belonging to this certain category. Sadly, many of these animals are close to the brink of extinction due to deforestation, oil spills and many things that the destructive man has invented for wealth and power.

Sadly, many of these animals are close to the brink of extinction due to deforestation, oil spills and many things that the destructive man will do for wealth and power. Because of this, many of them have become more vulnerable, threatened and endangered. Fortunately, there are many organizations that are doing their best to save these rare animals. Animals like the blue whale, Philippine eagle, tiger, and orangutan are considered to be rare and are facing a very high risk of endangerment in the near future. Unfortunately, there are many animals that have been extinct beyond reasonable doubt and those are the Javan Tiger, Thylacine, Dodo, Passenger Pigeon, Caribbean Monk Seal, Dimetrodon, Aurochs and Dusky Seaside Sparrow and many people are being afraid that the Alagoas Curassow, Mountain Gorilla, Arakan Forest Turtle, Darwin’s Fox, Javan Rhino, Brazillian Merganser, Gharial and Vaquita which are considered to be facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild to share the same fate as them.

Currently, 1,556 known species in the world are starting to be considered as rare animals or close to extinction day by day. In order for us to conserve the biodiversity of the planet, we must first take into consideration the reasons why animals are starting t be endangered. Habitat loss is the most widespread cause of species endangerment in the U.S. When an animal’s ecosystem is not maintained, they lose their home and are either forced to adapt to new surroundings or perish. Pollution is another factor. Also, over-exploitation, disease and climate changes contribute to the endangerment of the animals. We, humans also have an impact on the species and their environment. As human use of resources, energy and space intensified over the past few years, the diversity of life have been slowly diminishing.

Animals have done many good things for us like serving as a tourist attraction, contributing to the medical field and as identifiers to the hazards of human health. There are many things why we should support organizations that are focusing on the biodiversity of the planet earth and mentioned above are just one of those. That is why rare animals should be saved before they go extinct in the wild. Remember, that there is a food pyramid in the animal kingdom and that you should not take any element from it for it will have a domino effect.

Source from : http://www.rareanimals.org/

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Spooked Baby Dinosaur Ran on Two Legs

The footprints, found in the foothills west of Denver, may represent the youngest and smallest known apatosaur ever discovered. Plant-eating Apatosaurus, when fully grown, was as long as three school buses parked end to end, and weighed as much as eight Asian elephants combined.

The little dino, on the other hand, was about the same size as a small pet dog is today.The tracks for the infant dinosaur date to 148 million years ago. This was before the Rocky Mountains rose. At the time, the site was a broad savanna full of dinosaurs. Apatosaurus was the largest of these in the Denver area. It's even possible that the region once served as an Apatosaurus nursery. Paleontologists haven't ruled out that idea.

The tracks are ovular and about the same width as a coffee mug. While one animal left average walking footprints, another infant dinosaur ran parallel to adult tracks. The tracks could represent a scientific first.

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Beefy dino sported fearsome claws

Fossils of a new type of dinosaur, which looks like a beefy version of the predatory Velociraptor, have been unearthed in Romania.

The stocky dinosaur lived some 70 million years ago; higher sea levels at this time would have made the region an island archipelago.

The animal is also notable for the two large and sharp claws on each foot; Velociraptor had just one.

It may have used these to rip apart its prey scientists believe.

The find is reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.

It has been given the scientific name Balaur bondoc, which means "stocky dragon".

"Balaur might be one of the largest predators in this ecosystem," said co-author Zoltan Csiki from the University of Bucharest, Romania.

He said that while the 1.8m-2.1m (6-7ft) -long creature is extremely unusual, it is closely related to animals like Velociraptor and feathered dinosaurs uncovered in China.
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The new Balaur fossil is a partial skeleton that includes leg, hip, backbone, arms, hand, rib, and tail bones.

It had a big toe with a large claw that it was able to extend - presumably used to slash prey - as well as a large claw on the second toe.

Balaur had short and stocky feet and legs, and the pelvis had enormous muscle attachment areas, indicating that it was adapted for strength rather than speed.

Some bones in the animal's hand are fused, features that would have made grasping difficult.

Stephen Brusatte, a graduate student at Columbia University in Palisades, US, said: "Compared to Velociraptor, [this dinosaur] was probably more of a kickboxer than a sprinter, and it might have been able to take down larger animals than itself, as many carnivores do today."

However, researchers stressed that it was difficult to tell how it hunted or what the animal ate.

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Fossil shows dinosaur caught in collapsing sand dune

Researchers have discovered a nearly complete fossil of a dinosaur which appears to have been caught in a collapsing sand dune.

The Seitaad ruessi fossil, described in the journal PLoS One, is a relative of the long-necked sauropods that were once Earth's biggest animals.

S. ruessi, found in what is now Utah, could have walked on all four legs, or risen up to walk on just two.

It is from the Early Jurassic period, between 175 and 200 million years ago.

At that time, all of Earth's continents were still joined in the super-continent Pangaea, and sauropodomorphs like S. ruessi have been found in South America and Africa.

Unlike the sauropods to which they are related, S. ruessi was relatively small, about a metre tall and 3.5-4m long with its lengthy neck and tail, weighing in at between 70 and 90kg.

Plant life

Much of the fossil, first discovered by a local artist in 2004, was perfectly preserved in sandstone. However, it is missing its head, neck and tail.

Joseph Sertich of the University of Utah and Mark Loewen from the Utah Museum of Natural History have since then worked to free S. ruessi from its sandy grave - in an arid part of the US that, 185 million years ago, formed part of a huge desert.

"Although Seitaad was preserved in a sand dune, this ancient desert must have included wetter areas with enough plants to support these smaller dinosaurs and other animals," said Mr Sertich.

"Just like in deserts today, life would have been difficult in Utah's ancient 'sand sea.'"

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Secrets of Antarctica's fossilised forests

It may be hard to believe, but Antarctica was once covered in towering forests.

One hundred million years ago, the Earth was in the grip of an extreme Greenhouse Effect.

The polar ice caps had all but melted; in the south, rainforests inhabited by dinosaurs existed in their place.

These Antarctic ecosystems were adapted to the long months of winter darkness that occur at the poles, and were truly bizarre.

But if global warming continues unabated, could these ancient forests be a taste of things to come?

One of the first people to uncover evidence for a once greener Antarctic was none other than the explorer, Robert Falcon Scott.

Toiling back from the South Pole in 1912, he stumbled over fossil plants on the Beardmore Glacier at 82 degrees south. The extra weight of these specimens may have been a factor in his untimely demise.

Yet his fossil discoveries also opened up a whole new window on Antarctica's sub-tropical past.
Forests in the frost

Professor Jane Francis of the University of Leeds is an intrepid explorer who has followed in Scott's footsteps. She has spent 10 field seasons in Antarctica collecting fossil plants and received the Polar Medal from the Queen in 2002.

"I still find the idea that Antarctica was once forested absolutely mind-boggling", she told the BBC.

"We take it for granted that Antarctica has always been a frozen wilderness, but the ice caps only appeared relatively recently in geological history."

One of her most amazing fossil discoveries to date was made in the Transantarctic Mountains, not far from where Scott made his own finds.

She recalled: "We were high up on glaciated peaks when we found a sedimentary layer packed full of fragile leaves and twigs."

These fossils proved to be remains of stunted bushes of beech. At only three to five million years old, they were some of the last plants to have lived on the continent before the deep freeze set in.

Source from : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12378934

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Giant Snake Preyed on Baby Dinosaurs

Remains of an enormous snake have been discovered in a 67-million-year-old dinosaur nest, according to a new study. The snake was found coiled around a crushed dinosaur egg and next to what was left of a hatchling titanosaur.

This preserved moment in Cretaceous time provides the first direct evidence of the feeding behavior of a primitive snake, co-author Jason Head told Discovery News. Aside from this discovery, two other similar snake-egg pairings were also found at the site, located in what is now Gujarat in western India.

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Toddler Tyrannosaur Redefines 'Terrible Twos'

The youngest and most complete known skull and skeleton for a tyrannosaur reveal that even juveniles among these infamous carnivores were strong hunters, capable of outrunning and killing other dinosaurs, according to new research.

The remains, described in the latest Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, belong to a two to three-year-old Tarbosaurus bataar, the closest known relative of Tyrannosaurus rex. It lived 70 million years ago and died young of unknown causes.

While this juvenile dinosaur gives new meaning to the "terrible twos," it also provides evidence that young tyrannosaurs looked and behaved differently than their parents did.

"The adult's head would be much more robust and rugged-looking, with more prominent facial ornaments (such as various crests and bumps), whereas the juvenile's head would have been much sleeker and more delicate looking," co-author Lawrence Witmer told Discovery News. "Many of us humans get kind of nastier looking as we get older too!"

"There would have been other differences, such as longer, more gangly, legs in the juvenile and generally a more slender body," added Witmer, an Ohio University paleontologist.

He and his colleagues made the determinations after extensively analyzing the young dinosaur's remains, which were unearthed in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia. The researchers believe the Tarbosaurus was nine feet in total length, about three feet high at the hip, and weighed about 70 pounds.

In contrast, adults of this species were 35 to 40 feet long, 15 feet high, and six tons in weight. The life expectancy was probably about 25 years, based on comparisons with T. rex.

"Tarbosaurus is found in the same rocks as giant herbivorous dinosaurs like the long-necked Opisthocoelicaudia and the duckbill hadrosaur Saurolophus," said Mahito Watabe, who led the expedition to Mongolia and is at the Hayashibara Museum of Natural Sciences in Okayama. "But the young juvenile Tarbosaurus would have hunted smaller prey, perhaps something like the bony-headed dinosaur Prenocephale."

The head of the youngster was too lightweight to handle the biting, twisting, and chomping required of its parents' larger prey, but the juvenile dinosaur's long legs suggest that it was a fast and agile runner. Prenocephale was probably just one of many animals that young Tarbosaurus likely hunted.

"There are also several lizards known from the Nemegt Formation, and they were other potential targets for the juvenile," co-author Takanobu Tsuihiji of Tokyo's National Museum of Nature and Science told Discovery News.

The differences between juvenile and adult tyrannosaurs may have reduced competition among them and strengthened their role as dominant predators in their environments. Since young Tarbosaurus was no weak toddler, the discovery helps to bolster the argument that tyrannosaurs were active predators and not just scavengers, as some other paleontologists have suggested.

That doesn't mean the meat-hungry dinosaurs would have passed up a free meal.

"The youngsters probably took mostly live prey and maybe some carrion, whereas the older guys would have had the power to kill, but also the imposing size to take over the kills of others and feast on carrion," Witmer explained.

Stephen Brusatte, an American Museum of Natural History paleontologist, told Discovery News that the young dinosaur "is an exceptional discovery" that "provides a remarkable glimpse into the anatomy, body proportions, and diet of young tyrannosaurs."

"This specimen is especially important because it is so well preserved, and because it is so young," Brusatte added. "It tells us what a toddler tyrannosaurid would have looked like, and it's thrilling to visualize what these quintessential dinosaurian super-predators looked like when they were so small and young."

Since the young Tarbosaurus' remains can unequivocally be linked to a particular species, they may, in future, shed important light on more controversial isolated fossil finds.


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