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Monday, February 22, 2010

Primitive island 'Jurassic Parkette' ruled by dwarf dinosaurs found

London, Feb 21 (ANI): Paleontologists have discovered a primitive lost world which was ruled by miniature dinosaurs

Sort of a pigmy Jurassic Park, the island was the homeland of dinos who were up to eight times lesser than some of their mainland cousins, reports The Telegraph.

Dwarf dinosaurs' fossils were establish in what is now modern day Romania, in an area known as Hateg, which, 65 million years before - when the creatures were living there - was an island, reports The Telegraph.

One of the fossils was of Magyarosaurus, which was small bigger than a horse, but was related to some of the biggest creatures to ever walk the Earth - gigantic titanosaurs such as Argentinosaurus, which reached up to 100 feet long and weighed approximately 80 tons.

Professor Michael Benton, from the University of Bristol, who carried out the delve into with scientists at the Universities of Bucharest and Bonn, said: Most of the well-known dinosaurs that we know about were living on big landmasses at the end of the Cretaceous age.

The inquisitive thing about Europe at this time was that it was largely covered by sea and much of Eastern Europe was a type of archipelago of islands.

If you are a big dinosaur on a little island with limited food and space, then the evolutionary pressure is either to go extinct or to get lesser.

The findings will be published in the scientific periodical Palaeogreography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. (ANI)

Labels: dinosaur age, dinosaur history, dinosaurs family, Dinosaurs world

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Dinosaur had ginger feathers

A team of scientists from China and the UK has currently revealed that the bristles of this 125 million-year-old Dinosaur were in fact ginger-coloured feathers.

The researchers say that the very small carnivore had a Mohican of feathers running along its head and back. It also had a stripy tail.

The team revealed details of the Dinosaur's colored feathers in an article published on Nature's website.

The team began by studying the fossilised ruins of a bird, Confuciusornis, which also lived during the premature cretaceous period.

Confuciusornis' featherswere preserved in very complete Fossils that were lately discovered in northern China.

Using a powerful electron microscope to look in the interior feathers, researchers were capable to see microscopic structures called melanosomes, which, in life, include the pigment melanin.

Melanin is what gives color to human hair and animal pelt, said Professor Mike Benton from the University of Bristol, UK, who led this study. They are also the most general way that colors are [produced] in feathers.

Professor Benton explained that differently shaped melanosomes produced dissimilar colors, with blacks or greys produced by sausage-shaped melanosomes, and reddish or russet shades found in globular ones.

Labels: dinosaur age, Dinosaur fossils, dinosaur history

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Blast from the past

DANVILLE â€” Local dentist Dr. John Jack Hankla is delighted as schoolchildren file into the grand hall of the Community Arts Center and marvel at the hefty collection of replica dinosaur skeletons.

I just enjoy seeing the children 'ooh' and aah, Hankla said. When they first come in through the door and they see the splendor of these specimens, and they say Wow! I understand that we have done our job.

That Wow! factor, as Hankla calls it, fueled the curiosity that he and his son, John, shared to obtain the collection over the last 20 years.

The collection which includes a 40-foot Tyrannosaurus rex does not include innovative fossils. Rather, the specimens in the display are cast replicas of the bones. The ground floor has completely assembled skeletons, while an upstairs room has skulls and feet.

The inventive fossils were found in China, Brazil, Germany, North Africa and elsewhere around the world. The skull of a duck-billed dinosaur was found on a site close to Lusk, Wyo., where the Hanklas one time owned the fossil rights for digging specimens.

It was at that site that Jack and John Hankla first got eager about dinosaurs when John was about 8 years old. Hundreds of duck-billed dinosaurs had drowned there in a few sort of water hazard.

They were all washed into one smooth lagoon, Jack Hankla said. The carnivores then came and feasted on all these carcasses, and it was nicknamed the T. rex CafÃ©, because we discover all these broken teeth of carnivores like T. rex and raptors and lesser dromeosaurs, where they had been there munching.

Labels: dinosaur age, Dinosaur bones, Dinosaur fossils, dinosaur history, Dinosaur unit

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Model Dinosaur Tests Four-Winged Flight

A hand-built model of an early flying dinosaur may explain precisely how the four wings of Microraptor gui helped it glide down from trees.

Basing their work on a cast of a very fresh-looking fossil, University of Kansas scientists created a model airplane-like mock dinosaur made out of plywood, balsa, and carbon fiber. Then, they attached one of three sets of test wings of dissimilar configurations to the body with rubber bands. The wings even featured real bird feathers whittled into likely shapes.

We went rear and forth. We thought, maybe weâ€™ll do 3-D graphics and itâ€™ll look actually cool. But itâ€™s more precise to do the modeling directly from the specimen, said Dave Burnham, a paleontologist at the University of Kansas and co-author of a new paper on the work in the actions of the National Academies of Sciences.

Microraptor gui was a little dinosaur species that lived about 120 million years ago. About two dozen specimens have been recovered from close to Liaoning, China. The Kansas team was lent one well-preserved fossil, from which they began their rebuilding efforts.

With the model in hand, they were capable to test how the animals might have glided, by attaching them to a catapult that imparted a reliable amount of thrust to send them flying through the air. By measuring the distances that the dissimilar wing configurations allowed the model dinosaurs to fly, they were able to determine which wing type would have been most competent.

The biomechanical reconstruction of flying creatures not seen today is a tricky business. Burnham and his collaborator, University of Kansas paleontologist David Alexander, argue that the birds most likely glided with their legs splayed out â€” not unlike a flying squirrel.

Others argue for a dissimilar wing configuration, in which both sets of wings are parallel to each other, what they call a biplane configuration. Sankar Chatterjee, a paleontologist at Texas Tech, and R. Jack Templin, an independent scholar, say that as an alternative of splaying out like a squirrel, the animal would have tucked its legs below itself.

Labels: dinosaur age, Dinosaur animals, dinosaur history, Dinosaurs world

Monday, January 25, 2010

Gang broke into dinosaur park

They escaped custody when they appeared before Norwich courts.

Prosecutor Lisa Britton said: They broke into the Ice Age indulgence hut and stole sweets, fizzy drinks and other confectionary to the value of Â£100. Some of these items were afterward found strewn around the park in plastic bags.

They also smashed the hut as they broke in and some of the dinosaurs had been moved out of place.

Wayne Gray, 26, of Catton Grove highway, Norwich, and Paul Sillis, 18, of Berners Close, Norwich, both admitted two counts of theft after they returned to the park and carried out the matching offence.

Richard Harvey, 22, of Julian highway, Spixworth; Jody Newton, 25, of St Leonards Road, Norwich; and Kirsty Gray, 20, of West Acre Drive, Norwich, every one admitted one count of theft.

The court heard that none had been in serious problem before. In mitigation James Burrows said their behavior had been brainless but not malicious and amounted to tomfoolery.

He added: It seemed like a excellent idea and was fun at the time but it has led to these five young people appearing before the court on some quite grave charges.

Magistrate John Nicholls said that the cases of Wayne Gray and Sillis were provoked by the fact they returned and repeated their offense.

Wayne Gray and Sillis were sentenced to 180 hours amateur work for the community with Â£105 in compensation and costs. Harvey and Norton were sentenced to 120 hours amateur work with Â£75 compensation and costs. Kirsty Gray was given a 12 month conditional discharge with recompense and costs of Â£75.

Labels: Dinosaur Display Museums, dinosaur history, Dinosaurs world

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