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Saturday, March 27, 2010
Dinosaurs' dominance 'aided by mass volcanism'
Immense volcanic activity aided the Dinosaurs rise to prominence some 200 million years ago, a study suggests.
Dinosaurs were the dominant vertebrates on land for about 135 million years.
While it is widely accepted that an asteroid or comet wiped them out, there has been less agreement on the factors which direct to their ascendancy.
Research in PNAS journal implies volcanic eruptions changed the climate, causing a mass Extinction of Dinosaurs' main competitors.
The scientific paper, by researchers from the US and Taiwan, come across at several lines of evidence such as the remains of plant wax and wood from sedimentary rocks interbedded with lava flows. From these, they were able to extract essential data about the climate at this time.
The lava flows are dated to the end-Triassic extinction, 201.4 million years before, which wiped out 50% of tetrapods (four-limbed animals) on land, 50% of terrestrial plants and 20% of marine families.
The scientists inspected how two different isotopes (or forms) of carbon fluctuated during these volcanic eruptions. They discover that the "heavy" form of carbon was depleted relative to the "light" form.
Labels: Dinosaur animals, Dinosaur reptile, Dinosaurs, Extinction of Dinosaurs
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Friday, March 5, 2010
Dog-sized creature was almost a dinosaur
Dino-like animal was tiny, weighing about that of a young child
A four-legged animal about the size of a large dog with a long tail is now the oldest known relative of Dinosaurs, dating back few 240 million years.
Paleontologists recently examined the bones from at least 14 individuals of this proto-dinosaur that were found out in southern Tanzania.
The dino-like animal was small, weighing about that of a young child, and possiblely munched on plants.
Until now, the Fossil record proposes that the oldest known dinosaurs went back just 230 million years. But the new finding, tells scientists dinosaurs were around much earlier and their lineage had already split off from a group of dinosaur-like relatives by about 240 million years before.
From the various bones of the species now called Asilisaurus kongwe, Sterling Nesbitt, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, and his colleagues pieced together a nearly whole skeleton of the animal.
The researchers believe the dinosaur relative was about 3 to 10 feet long (1 to 2 meters) from nose to tail and about 3 feet (1 meter) tall from head to toes, Nesbitt said. The animal weighed in the neighborhood of 10 to 30 kg.
It walked on all fours and sported an upturned beak possibly enveloped in a horny substance and peg-like teeth tipped with tiny serrations.
Labels: Dinosaur animals, Dinosaur fossil pictures, Dinosaur reptile, Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs research
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Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Giant Snake Ate Baby Dinosaurs
The final thing hatchling Dinosaurs might have seen were giant snakes, researchers say.
Scientists found out the nearly complete remains of an 11-foot-long, 67-million-year-old serpent coiled around a crushed Dinosaur egg right next to a hatchling in the nest of a sauropod dinosaur, the largest animals to have ever walked the Earth.
"We think that the hatchling had just exited its egg, and that activity attracted the snake," said researcher Dhananjay Mohabey, a paleontologist at the Geological Survey of India. It was such a thrill to find out such a portentous moment frozen in time.
The dinosaur eggs likely were laid along the sandy banks of a small, quiet tributary and sheltered afterward by the mother with a thin layer of sediment. These dinosaurs did not seem to look after their young - no evidence for adults has been established at the site.
The fact the bones and delicate structures, such as eggshells and the snake's skull, are set in anatomical order (as they would appear in real life) points to rapid entombment of a serpent caught in the act, as opposed to them all getting washed together after they died.
"Burial was rapid and deep," said Shanan Peters-, a geologist at the University of Wisconsin. Probably a pulse of slushy mud and sand released during a storm.
Labels: Dinosaur animals, Dinosaur fossil pictures, Dinosaur reptile, Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs research
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Thursday, February 25, 2010
Island of dwarf dinosaurs did exist
An island of "dwarf dinosaurs" which was only a theory for 100 years really did survive, scientists have announced.
The idea of the tiny prehistoric beasts on Hateg Island, Romania, was proposed 100 years before by the colourful Baron Franz Nopcsa, whose family owned estates in the area.
He discovers that many dinosaur remains on Hateg were half the size of their close relatives in older rocks in England, Germany, and North America.
The baron's theory has been checked for the first time by Professor Mike Benton at the University of Bristol, and six other authors from Romania, Germany, and the United States.
The team found that the Hateg Island dinosaurs were in fact dwarfs and not just young dinosaurs.
A favourite theme of evolutionary ecologists is whether there is an "island rule" - where gigantic animals isolated on islands evolve to become smaller.
Three species of the Hateg dinosaurs - the plant-eating sauropod Magyarosaurus and the plant-eating ornithopods Telmatosaurus and Zalmoxes - are half the length of their close relatives elsewhere.
The team examined these three dinosaurs, each of them represented by many specimens. They found no evidence of any large bones such as they would expect to locate in their normal-sized relatives.
More importantly, a close study of the bones proved that the Dinosaurs had reached adulthood so they were not just underdeveloped youngsters.
Labels: Dinosaur animals, Dinosaur fossil pictures, Dinosaur reptile, Dinosaurs research, Walking with Dinosaurs
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Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Did dinosaurs evolve from birds or birds from dinos?
Study questions current evolutionary beliefs about birds
Latest study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences proposes that Dinosaurs might actually have evolved from birds and not the other way around, as is commonly believed.
Oregon State University zoology professor John Ruben presents commentary about the study, which tested a latest specimen of raptor fossil discovered in 2003. The PNAS study reveled that the “small, feathered species must have been a ‘glider’ that came down from trees.”
The general and long-held belief that raptors and other ground-dwelling dinosaurs ultimately became birds is brought into question by the research, which Ruben says presents sound evidence that birds eventually became certain types of dinosaurs. For instance, the velociraptor so prominent in Jurassic Park might really have been a flightless bird.
Analysis of the feathers on the “microraptor’s” four limbs implies that the dinosaur probably couldn’t have taken off for ground-up flight, but were probably gliding from trees, “somewhat like a modern-day flying squirrel.” Ruben says this analysis builds it improbable that dinosaurs one day took to the skies but, rather, that birds one day touched down and stayed put, finally becoming dinosaurs.
Labels: Dinosaur animals, Dinosaur reptile, Dinosaurs, Extinction of Dinosaurs, First dinosaur
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Monday, December 28, 2009
'Queen of the Dinosaurs' dies in Scotts Valley
When Peggy Thompson's husband Larry died in 1965, she was in her early 40s, raising 3 small children and running a Scotts Valley nursery school.
If that weren't enough of a burden to carry from day to day for a new widow, she also had a different role to play.
She was the Queen of the Dinosaurs.
Peggy Thompson, who died Dec. 14 at the age of 86 at her home in Scotts Valley, was the owner and operator of one of the more unusual businesses in the extensive history of Santa Cruz County. It was called Lost World, and it was a Scotts Valley tourist attraction that featured 25 to 30 enormous, realistic, life-sized models of various different Species of Dinosaurs, some of which could be seen by drivers — many of whom were definitely startled out-of-towners — on Highway 17.
The entrance to Lost World was on Scotts Valley Drive, and featured a huge animatronic tree that served as the park's entrance, close to a T-rex looking out over the turret of a castle. The park also featured what was formerly known as the Tree Circus, a grove of trees meticulously grafted into the kinds of whimsical shapes never found in nature. The Thompsons bought the Tree Circus from its creator, Axel Erlandson, renaming it the Enchanted Forest, keeping Erlandson as a hired caretaker.
Labels: Dinosaur animals, Dinosaur fossil pictures, Dinosaur reptile, Dinosaurs research, Walking with Dinosaurs
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Saturday, December 19, 2009
Dinosaurs come to the Waukegan Public Library
Volunteer Mitch Siegel of Waukegan helps assemble a T-Rex dinosaur skeleton as the Waukegan Public Library gets prepared for the "Dig the Dinosaurs" display, to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the Early Learning Center.
With the scratching sounds of a prehistoric jungle echoing overhead, visitors to the Waukegan Public Library's Early Learning Center are now being welcomed by a smile much toothier than they are accustomed to meeting.
To celebrate the one-year anniversary of opening the ELC, the Waukegan Public Library renovated its ELC facilities for three days and reopened them on November 15 with a new look and feel, gathering dinosaurs into nearly all facet of the space with "Dig the Dinosaurs."
Labels: Dinosaur animals, Dinosaur reptile, Dinosaurs, Extinction of Dinosaurs
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Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Going Where the Dinosaurs Roamed in the United StatesExperts urge 'Westward Ho!' for finding the best dinosaur treasures
Experts urge 'Westward Ho!' for finding the best dinosaur treasuresThe gigantic brachiosaurus, the deadly and fierce tyrannosaurus, the nimble and fast velociraptor.
Millions of years ago, long before humans existed, these creatures - and many others like them -- wander the earth. We visited some of the territory where dinosaurs roamed in what is now the United States.
Morrison Formation, is a group of rock layers that is prime territory for dinosaur fossils. It is centered in the western U.S. states of Wyoming and Colorado. We start our exploration for the dinosaurs of North America at the Wyoming Dinosaur Center.
Malcom Bedell is a investigator at the center. His excavation team is digging up what he is pretty certain is a fossilized diplodocus - a large plant-eating dinosaur -- but it is slow and time-consuming work.
Labels: Dinosaur animals, Dinosaur reptile, Dinosaurs, Extinction of Dinosaurs
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