Sunday, December 28, 2008

Humans lived alongside dinosaurs

Dinosaurs and people coexist only in books, movies and cartoons. The last dinosaurs - other than birds - died out dramatically about 65 million years ago, while the fossils of our earliest human ancestors are only about 6 million years old.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Dinosaurs Were Airheads CT Scans

Paleontologists have long known that dinosaurs had tiny brains, but they had no idea the beasts were such airheads.

A new study by Ohio University researchers Lawrence Witmer and Ryan Ridgely found that dinosaurs had more air cavities in their heads than expected. By using CT scans, the scientists were able to develop 3-D images of the dinosaur skulls that show a clearer picture of the physiology of the airways.

“I’ve been looking at sinuses for a long time, and indeed people would kid me about studying nothing—looking at the empty spaces in the skull. But what’s emerged is that these air spaces have certain properties and functions,” said Witmer, Chang Professor of Paleontology in Ohio University’s College of Osteopathic Medicine.

Monday, December 22, 2008

Fossil "Pompeii" of Prehistoric


The Ashfall Fossil Beds were uncovered in the early 1970s by Mike Voorhies, the current curator of paleontology at the University of Nebraska State Museum in Lincoln.

In 1971 he found a skull of a rhino calf protruding from an eroding ravine. The skull turned out to be part of a complete skeleton embedded in volcanic ash.

Voorhies led excavations of the site in 1978 and 1979, supported by a grant from the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration. (National Geographic News is part of the National Geographic Society.)

About 12 million years ago, a volcano in modern-day Idaho spread a blanket of ash over large parts of what is now the midwestern United States. A layer of this powdered glass one or two feet (one- to two-thirds of a meter) thick covered the grasslands of northeastern Nebraska.

Most of the animals living in the area survived the actual ashfall, but as they continued to graze on the ash-covered grasses, their lungs began to fill with the deadly particles.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Winton Dinosaurs

The Queensland Museum Geosciences and Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum [opens in new window] have been actively excavating dinosaurs from western Queensland, near the township of Winton, since 2001. This collaboration was sparked by the discovery, in 1999, of one of Australia's largest dinosaurs, dubbed "Elliot", a gigantic sauropod from the Cretaceous Period (95 million years ago).

The dinosaur bones are from rocks found in the Winton Formation, a geological layer 102-98 million years old. Since excavations began, several other types of dinosaurs have been found, including plant-eating ankylosaurs and ornithopods, plus the serrated teeth of carnivorous theropod dinosaurs.

Among the remains of these dinosaurs are the fossils of small animals and plants, which may have been considered dinosaurs' food!

Volunteers from across Australia and overseas help to excavate the dinosaur bones, putting them in plaster jackets ready for transport to the lab. There, they are painstakingly prepared for scientific study and display.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Utah Shows Land Plants Of 200 Million Years Ago


new archeological site in St George, Utah, U.S. was recently highlighted by Andrew Milner, Paleontologist, City of St. George, Jim Kirkland, State Paleontologist and Sidney Ash, Paleo-botanists. The site is significant because it is the only early Jurassic land flora known in the western United States. It provides evidence that a variety of land plants were present in the area about 200 million years ago.

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Fossil Animals Are Dinosaurs?

No. Dinosaurs are a group of ancient reptiles that had a set of particular skeletal features. The hips, hind legs, and ankles were specialized and allowed the legs to move directly under the body, rather than extending out from the side of the body as in modern lizards. This arrangement enabled dinosaurs to bring their knees and ankles directly below their hips and provided the necessary attachments for very strong leg muscles. Dinosaur skeletons were well designed for supporting a large body, for standing erect (upright), and for running. The front legs were adapted for grasping prey, for supporting weight, or for walking and running. The skulls of dinosaurs were designed for maximum strength, for minimum weight, and (in some cases) for grasping, holding, or tearing at prey. These skeletal features separated dinosaurs from other ancient reptiles such as Dimetrodon, the plesiosaurs, and pterosaurs. Fossil mammals, like mammoths and "saber-toothed tigers" (e.g., Smilodon), are also often incorrectly called dinosaurs.

For More News: URL:http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dinosaurs/all.html

Thursday, November 27, 2008

More about dinosaurs

Your local museums, public libraries, and bookstores are good places to start. Some national monuments (Dinosaur National Monument, UT and CO), national parks (Petrified Forest National Park, AZ), and state parks (for example, Dinosaur Valley State Park, TX) have outstanding displays. State geological surveys also have or can provide information on nearby dinosaur exhibits. The references below will help you get started; they provided some of the information for this pamphlet.

  • Dodson, P., and Dawson, S.D., 1991, Making the fossil record of dinosaurs: Modern Geology, vol. 16, p. 3-15.
  • Farlow, J.O., 1993, The dinosaurs of Dinosaur Valley State Park -- Somervell County, Texas: Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Austin, 31 p.
  • Glut, D.F., 1982, The New Dinosaur Dictionary: Secaucus. Citadel Press, 288 p.
  • Lambert, D., and the Diagram Group, 1990, Dinosaur Data Book: New York, Avon Books, 320 p.
  • Marsh, O.C., 1896, The dinosaurs of North America: U.S. Geological Survey, Sixteenth Annual Report, part I, p. 131-414.
  • Norman, D., 1985, Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs: New York, Crescent Books, 208 p.
  • Russell, D.A., 1989, An Odyssey in Time, the Dinosaurs of North America: Minocqua, North Word Press, 220 p.
  • Thulborn, T., 1990, Dinosaus Tracks: London, Chapman and Hall, 410 p.
  • Weishampel, D.B., Dodson, P., and Osmolska, H., 1990, The Dinosauria: Berkeley, University of California Press, 733 p.

For More News: URL:http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dinosaurs/moreinfo.html

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Food of Dinosaurs

Some dinosaurs ate lizards, turtles, eggs, or early mammals. Some hunted other dinosaurs or scavenged dead animals. Most, however, ate plants (but not grass, which hadn't evolved yet). Rocks that contains dinosaur bones also contain fossil pollen and spores that indicate hundreds to thousands of types of plants existed during the Mesozoic Era. Many of these plants had edible leaves, including evergreen conifers (pine trees, redwoods, and their relatives), ferns, mosses, horsetail rushes, cycads, ginkos, and in the latter part of the dinosaur age flowering (fruiting) plants. Although the exact time of origin for flowering plants is still uncertain, the last of the dinosaurs certainly had fruit available to eat.


For More News: URL:http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dinosaurs/food.html

Dinosaurs Colors

Direct fossil evidence for dinosaur skin color is unknown. Paleontologists think that some dinosaurs likely had protective coloration, such as pale undersides to reduce shadows, irregular color patterns ("camouflage") to make them less visible in vegetation, and so on. Those dinosaurs that had enough armor, such as the stegosaurs and ceratopsians, may not have needed protective coloration but may have been brightly colored as a warning to predators or as a display for finding a mate. Most dinosaurs probably were as brightly colored as modern lizards, snakes, or birds.

For more news: http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dinosaurs/color.html

Origin of avian genome size and structure in non-avian dinosaurs.

Avian genomes are small and streamlined compared with those of other amniotes by virtue of having fewer repetitive elements and less non-coding DNA. This condition has been suggested to represent a key adaptation for flight in birds, by reducing the metabolic costs associated with having large genome and cell sizes. However, the evolution of genome architecture in birds, or any other lineage, is difficult to study because genomic information is often absent for long extinct relatives. Here we use a novel bayesian comparative method to show that bone cell size correlates well with genome size in extant vertebrates, and hence use this relationship to estimate the genome sizes of 31 species of extinct dinosaur, including several species of extinct birds.

Our results indicate that the small genomes typically associated with avian flight evolved in the saurischian dinosaur lineage between 230 and 250 million years ago, long before this lineage gave rise to the first birds. By comparison, ornithischian dinosaurs are inferred to have had much larger genomes, which were probably typical for ancestral Dinosauria. Using comparative genomic data, we estimate that genome-wide interspersed mobile elements, a class of repetitive DNA, comprised 5-12% of the total genome size in the saurischian dinosaur lineage, but was 7-19% of total genome size in ornithischian dinosaurs, suggesting that repetitive elements became less active in the saurischian lineage. These genomic characteristics should be added to the list of attributes previously considered avian but now thought to have arisen in non-avian dinosaurs, such as feathers, pulmonary innovations, and parental care and nesting.

For more info: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17344851


Thursday, November 13, 2008

dinosaurs live


Paleontologists now have evidence that dinosaurs lived on all of the continents. At the beginning of the age of dinosaurs (during the Triassic Period, about 230 million years ago) the continents we now know were arranged together as a single supercontinent called Pangea. During the 165 million years of dinosaur existence this supercontinent slowly broke apart. Its pieces then spread across the globe into a nearly modern arrangement by a process called plate tectonics. Volcanoes, earthquakes, mountain building, and sea-floor spreading are all part of plate tectonics, and this process is still changing our modern Earth.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

The colour and skin of dinosaurs

We know something about the scaly skin because there are fossil examples of the imprints of the skin in ancient mud. However the colours have not been preserved. The pictures in books showing colours are just the guesses of artists and are based upon what sort of environments the dinosaurs may have lived in.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Platypterygius


Platypterygius was a large ichthyosaur (not a dinosaur) which grew to 6 or 7 metres long. It inhabited the inland sea between 110 and 100 million years ago. Fossils of this animal are amongst the most common of the large marine reptiles found in Queensland. Platypterygius was a fast and agile swimmer. It swam by moving its tail from side to side and steered with paddles or fins. It gave birth to live young. It would have eaten squid, fish and ammonites. The fossil remains of a hatching and its mother were discovered in Queensland in 1988. The name Platypterygius means broad-fin.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Dinosaur Stampede!


Discovered in the 1960s and excavated by the Queensland Museum and the Australian Army, the Lark Quarry dinosaur trackway is the best example of dinosaur tracks in the world. It is located 110km SW of Winton. Here, now exposed in a small quarry, are thousands of dinosaur footprints recording the events of a few moments in time 95 million years ago. Over 3000 footprints, made by nearly 200 individual dinosaurs, were found at the site. Three main types of dinosaur track are present: a small track from a coelurosaur, which was about 13-22cm at the hip and a large group of tracks from orithopod dinosaurs which were between 12-70cm at the hip. The third type of footprint was a large flesh-eating dinosaur which left footprints nearly 60cm long. It would have been about 2.6 m at the hip, a very large dinosaur indeed.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Muttaburrasaurus


Named after the town of Muttaburra in central Queensland, Muttaburrasaurus langdoni was discovered by local grazier Doug Langdon, for whom the dinosaur is named. Muttaburrasaurus lived around 100 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period. It was a herbivore, with rows of grinding teeth. Several specimens of this dinosaur have been found in central and northern Queensland, and a few teeth have been found in New South Wales. Muttaburrasaurus was about 7m long, and probably ate plants such as ferns, cycads and conifers. It may have lived in herds.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

The Richmond Pliosaur


The complete, articulated (joined-together) skeleton of this animal (not a dinosaur) was found in 1990 near the town of Richmond, north-western Queensland. It is one of the best, most complete skeletons of its type in the world. The animal is as yet un-named, but scientists are currently working to fully understand and describe it. It belongs to the pliosauroid group, and was nearly 5m long. It is probably a member of the polycotylid family, a specialised pliosuaroid from the Early Cretaceous period. It had a relatively short neck, and a powerful set of flippers and a tail. It lived in the inland sea in Queensland 100 million years ago.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

imposible people and dinosaurs live at the same time

After the dinosaurs died out, nearly 65 million years passed before people appeared on Earth. However, small mammals (including shrew-sized primates) were alive at the time of the dinosaurs. Many scientists who study dinosaurs (vertebrate paleontologists) now think that birds are direct descendants of one line of carnivorous dinosaurs, and some consider that they in fact represent modern living dinosaurs. This theory remains under discussion and shows that there is still much we don't know about dinosaurs.

Monday, September 22, 2008

In Chhattisgarh region Dinosaurs fossil discovered

A fossil, expected to be 60 centimeters long, has seemingly been discovered in a private house in Chhattisgarhs Dhamtari region.

The head of the discovered dino structure is nine centimeters in size, whereas the forefeet and rear feet are 8 centimeters and 25 centimeters in size correspondingly. “The skin and the teeth of the specimen are intact and it is an amazing finding.

Dr. Kenny of the Indian Forest Services said that “This seems to be a reptile or a predecessor of dinosaurs”. Rajesh Sharma, the first person to see the fossil at his ancestral house said “I was digging this piece of land when saw this fossil. I took it to my home but my wife asked me to throw it away. When I came out, other villagers were all set to buy it. But I was asked by my fellow citizen to submit it to the forest authorities. It looked fairly like a dinosaur”.

In accordance with Anand Kurejia, the reptile may have been 60 to 70 years old at the time of its death. The fossil has been sent to specialists in Ranchi for added study.

Source: thaindian.com

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Will the actual dinosaurs stand up in science?

Most of the recently discovered dinosaurs are just that - new to science, a review concludes. With several past fossil finds named on the basis of partial remains, there has been concern that numerous double counting has been happening. Current studies had even puts forward this error rate may be as high as 50% - with some species being catalogued with a number of aliases.

However the journal Biology Letters reports that modern practice is at present very good. Professor Michael Benton from Bristol University, UK said "My research plans we're getting better at naming things; we're being more serious; we're using better material".

The scientist looked at the innovative descriptions of all 1,047 species of dinosaurs yet named, from 1824 to the present calendar day. He assessed the value of the specimens on which the names were founded - the kind specimens. Professor Benton said few 500 were truly distinct, and the confidence surrounding the most recent discoveries - about one new species a fortnight - was currently very high. Professor Benton explained that "The bane of the dinosaurologist's life is species that have been given named on the basis of unfinished specimens".

"In Victorian times, palaeontologists were dedicated to name new species, and in the animation of the great 'bone wars' for instance, from 1870 to 1890, they rushed into print with new names for each odd tooth, leg bone, or skull cap that came their manner. "Later work, on added complete specimens, reduced over 1,000 named dinosaurs to 500 or so".

Professor Benton said science had currently put in place far more accurate naming protocols, noticeably reducing the "alias problem". Since in 1960, the great greater part of new species are founded on more or less complete specimens, occasionally even whole skeletons. Professor Benton has a critical interest in the topic for the reason that he studies the evolution of dinosaurs. He tries to recognize how this famous animal group changed and diversified over roughly 200 million years.

"There's no point someone like myself doing big statistical analyses of numerous dinosaur species through time - or indeed any other fossil group - if you can't be sure that they really are genuinely different," he told BBC News. "This is essential moreover for studies of modern biodiversity. People have as well been looking at our present knowledge of mammals and insects and other animal groups and asking the easy question: are the species totals and lists we make use of for important conclusions - including to give the political advice about endangered species - are they right? "There's been a big debate regarding vast extinctions among amphibians. We have to know what the species are first, prior to we can converse about that”.

Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Monday, September 15, 2008

Dig discovers new dinosaur bones

Scientists say that a DIG for dinosaur bones in western Queensland may have discovered a new species.

The Australian Age of Dinosaurs Institute has done a two-week dig at a remote sheep and cattle station close to Winton, somewhere a 20-metre sauropod, dubbed Matilda, was uncovered three years ago. Institute chairman David Elliott said the fossils found in the most recent dig were up to 98 million years old.

Mr Elliott said that "We took back two ute fulls of bones". As they're small bones we don't consider they belong to Matilda. "We're expectant it's something wholly unique but we won't know whatever thing until six to eight months' time."

Mr Elliott said more of Matilda's bones were as well retrieved. He also said that "We're looking at one of the main concentrations of dinosaur bones that we've ever found". "There's a massive potential for some very exciting discoveries to come out of this work".

Sauropods, which first appeared in the late Triassic time, were the biggest animals to have lived on land.

Source: news.com.au

Monday, September 8, 2008

UMD Professor On Discovery Channel To Air Show

The work of UMD Professor Arthur Aufderheide and a group of research scientists...on what are billed as "the nearly all amazing dinosaur fossil finding of the century"... will be featured in a forthcoming primetime Discovery Channel documentary by title "Secrets of the Dinosaur Mummy".

Dr. Aufderheide is a UMD professor in the Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine. The documentary chronicles the hard work of Dr. Aufderheide and the research group on the dinosaur nicknamed "Leonardo" - the world's most complete dinosaur fossil yet found.

"Leonardo" is the only dinosaur ever discovered since 1908. "Leonardo" was discovered by a field research team in 2001 in Malta, Montana. It has its entire skin layer its body. September 14 at 8 P.M, the one-hour program airs on Sunday.

Source: northlandsnewscenter.com

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

On Discovery Channel The Non-Destructive Testing Group

The Non-Destructive Testing Group lately X-rayed a fossilized dinosaur mummy with the Kodak Industrex ACR 2000i X-Ray device machine. The complete story of this unprecedented discover will be chronicled in “Secrets of the Dinosaur Mummy,” premiering September 14, 9:00 pm (ET/PT), resting on the Discovery Channel.

Leonardo, who will be going on to put on show September 19 at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, is a three-year-old male Brachylophosaurus Canadensis, discovered in the summer of 2000 in Malta, MT.

What makes Leonard accordingly particular is that he is the largest and best-preserved dinosaur fossil ever discovered—his body in fact mummified, meaning that 90% of his soft tissue is preserved, together with skin, muscle, nails and beak.

Source: qualitymag.com

Monday, September 1, 2008

Colorful Imaginations to launch Dinosaur King Toys to UK

Vivid Imaginations will launch US toy brand Dinosaur King in UK in the coming year. The range, aimed at boys aged involving four and nine years old, has been urbanized from an animated TV show.

The company has signed a distribution agreement with maker 4Kids Entertainment to give out the toys. The range will have dinosaur figures and role play items inspired by the series, at present airing on Jetix in the UK. The launch association will be formed in the US by Vivid's dispenser partner Playmates. The advertisements will subsequently be adapted by agency Focus on Kids for the UK and Ireland.

The TV series Dinosaur King has been running on Jetix ever since the start of 2008 and is at present the network's top-rated show for Kids four to 15 year olds, and it is because of run on free-to-air channels early in the coming year. The TV show is based on an arcade and collectable card match, created by Sega, and it chronicles the adventures of Max and his two best friends Rex and Zoe, who have revealed a mysterious set of dinosaur cards and a stone slate that contain the power to carry dinosaurs back to life.

Source: marketingweek.co.uk

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

About 75 Million Years after Death Fossilized Pregnant Turtle Discovered

A turtle that toddled alongside the dinosaurs died just days sooner than laying a clutch of eggs. At present, about 75 million years later, paleontologists are publicizing their find of the fossilized mother-to-be and the eggs tucked within her body.

Scientists from the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Canada revealed the turtle in 1999 in a mud-filled channel in the badlands of southeastern Alberta. After that, in 2005, University of Calgary scientists found a nest of 26 eggs laid by another female of the similar species in the same region.

The scientists say that both specimens, explained this week in the periodical Biology Letters, belong to an extinct turtle in the Adocus genus, a big river turtle that resembles today's slider and cooter turtles. The pregnant turtle signifies the first fossil turtle to be discovered with eggs still inside the body cavity.

Researcher Darla Zelenitsky, a geoscientist at the University of Calgary in Alberta, who was also involved in the first discovery of a dinosaur with eggs inside its body, said that "Although it is quite rare to hit upon the eggs and babies of extinct animals, it is even rarer to come across them within the body of the mother".

Fertile find

It was nearly by accident that scientists recognized that the fossil turtle had been pregnant. "The real reason we knew she was pregnant was since when the fossil was found the body was broken down," Zelenitsky told LiveScience, "therefore there was egg shell on the ground immediately below the fossil, it was falling out of the body".

The team spotted at least five crushed eggs inside the body of the fossilized female, and computed tomography (CT) scans discovered more eggs concealed beneath the turtle's shell. The turtle, expected to be about 16 inches (40 cm) long, could have produced about 20 eggs. When still intact, the eggs would have been sphere-shaped and about 1.5 inches (4 cm) in diameter. The eggs from the close by nest were about the same size and form. Both sets of eggs as well had very thick and hard shells, particularly relative to most modern turtles whose shells are moreover thinner or soft.

Thick-shelled

The thick eggshell can have evolved to look after the eggs from drying out or from greedy predators that lived during the Age of Dinosaurs. The pregnant turtle and nest specimens, the researchers say, shed light on the growth of reproductive traits of current turtles. François Therrien, the Museum's Curator of Dinosaur Palaeoecology, who worked on the turtle report in the journal said that "Based on these fossils, we have firm that the ancestor of living hidden-necked turtles, which are nearly all of today's turtles and tortoises, laid a big number of eggs and had hard, rigid shells".

Source: foxnews.com

Monday, August 25, 2008

Jesus, Dinosaurs, and the Dangers of Religious Dogma

Curriculum of the ‘Accelerated Christian Academy’ in Mosta teaches kids dinosaurs were used to construct ancient pyramids in Egypt.

In accordance with at least one Evangelist pastor, Vince Fenech, of the wholly licensed, State-approved Creationist institution, trusts and teaches children from ages 4 to18, that dinosaurs helped build the pyramids. Citing a so far undiscovered Biblical reference in the Book of Job, Fenech violently injures credulity and incredulously asserts to reporter Raphael Vassallo, of the MaltaToday newspaper, that the world was “created in 4004 BC”, and the ancient Egyptians harnessed the power of Jurassic-period dinosaurs to put up the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Pastor Vince Fenech is of course, a Creationist and eager espouser of a bevy of ideas that not only contests his good sense, but as well baselessly suspends science in the name of God; mainly that the Apollo 11 moon landing confirms “the universe is still young!”

Source: opednews.com

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Dinosaurs Possibly Older than First Thought

Traces of a dinosaur found a German quarry put forward the creatures may have been 15 million years older than previously believed. Dinasaurs are old and we knew that. But a new find in a limestone quarry placed in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt may explain that they are entirely 15 million years older than scientists at present believe.

Consistent with a Tuesday report in the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, a local paper in the area, archaeologists working in the quarry set up traces of a dinosaur that they believe are 250 million years old -- older than some known proof of dinosaurs. Thus far, officials from the state's Office for Preservation of Monuments and Archaeology have refused to confirm the find. A spokeswoman there has simply pointed out that the quarry is still in operation and that hobby diggers ought to stay away. The scientific group of people, though, is electrified. Should the age of the traces be confirmed, the find could shed light on the very starting of dinosaurs. One professional told the paper that the find is of "sensational value to science".

Until at present, scientists assumed that dinosaurs first evolved from archosaurs about 235 million years ago -- a good 15 million years after the creation of the dinosaur traces currently discovered. Archosaurs were lizard-like creatures that were greatly smaller than nearly all dinosaurs. Present-day alligators, crocodiles and some species of birds are as well descendents of archosaurs. Dinosaurs, although, died out some 65 million years ago. Scientists have been able to use bones, footprints, fossils, and other traces to restructure the so-called Mesozoic age, the time when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. It is an era divided into three periods, the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous -- with the present find maybe pushing back the earliest years of the Triassic.

Digs in Germany have long been given those clues to the earliest years of dinosaur life. In truth, the first fully undamaged dinosaur skeleton discovered in the world was discovered from German soil -- the so-called Archaeopteryx, which supplied evidence of the link stuck between dinosaurs and the modern bird. Scientist Richard Owen first informed on the find in 1863, lending crucial support for Charles Darwin's then-controversial theory of progress published only two years before.

Source: spiegel.de

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Dinosaurs will roam again on Earth in front of you

In truth, it's not truly a comeback tour, however dinosaurs will be part of an arena show stomping around Southern California starting this week.

"Walking with Dinosaurs," explain of smoke, sounds, light and striking music with a 42-foot-long T. rex and nine added mobile dinosaurs, will make its SoCal debut with 10 shows at the Honda Center starting Wednesday. A seven-show run is scheduled to run at Staples Center from Sept. 25-27.

The Times' Mike Boehm offers us a sneak peek in today's Calendar part: At the controls are a driver at the bottom of all creature, and two-member teams of high-tech puppeteers stationed in a booth high on top of the floor. Five smaller carnivores that round out the cast are populated by realistically dinosaur-suited actors, who have no aim of being confused with Barney.

For natural olden time’s museums, it may be somewhat discomfiting to have traditional displays of fossilized remains potentially upstaged by wholly fleshed-out facsimiles that make a lot more than just stand there. The William Brown, president of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia said that "I'm confident some rational-thinking scientists think it's a bad thing”. But he is happy to make out an "edutainment" sight like "Walking With Dinosaurs" pack families into sports arenas for staged lessons in evolutionary biology. Perhaps the Rolling Stones can at present quake off their own dinosaur label when it comes to their incessant arena touring.

Source: latimesblogs.latimes.com

Monday, August 11, 2008

At Dubai’s biggest mall dinosaurs and more

DUBAI-Lurking behind a billboard on Emirates Road, a dinosaur lies disconcertingly in pieces between the sandy foundations of what will turn out to be Dubai’s biggest mall and part of a growth that will be home to 40,000 people.

The City of Arabia, which will someday be the “Heart of Dubailand”, is still in its infancy, with the uppermost structures standing just three storeys tall. But Alex Vacha, the deputy director for projects, says it is on way and the first apartments will be handed over at the end of next year. The 20-million-square-metre development, which will charge US$5 billion, will be done in two phases.

The park, with its lifelike group of animatronic dinosaurs, plans to transport visitors to the Jurassic era and will mark amusement rides, Earth-science museum and planetarium. The growth still appears like a sand pit still the infrastructure has been laid down and the wadi bridges are complete. The next huge phase for the development will be a new interchange across Emirates Road that will connect the Mall of Arabia and the rest of the development with a new road that will run straightly from Sheikh Zayed Road. The first phase of the mall starts in 2010.

Source: thenational.ae

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

To Beat T. Rex the Duck-Billed Dinosaurs Grew Fast

The duck-billed hadrosaur grew to adulthood much faster than its predators, for example tyrannosaurs, a new learning suggests. The study showed, By about age 10, the plant-eating hadrosaur called Hypacrosaurus stebingeri had possible ballooned to its adult length of 30 feet (9 meters) from nose to tail tip. In the meantime, the meat-eater and hadrosaur-enemy Tyrannosaurus rex would have still been a relative pipsqueak at that age, not reaching mature size until 20 to 30 years of age. The researchers say that the size difference would have forced carnivorous dinos to hunt juveniles of H. stebingeri. Once T. rex reached mature size, about 40 feet (12 meters) in length, the tables would of course turn, with the meat-eater coming out on top.

Cooper and her colleagues compared growth rate data from H. stebingeri with three predators, all of which lived in the Late Cretaceous time from about 100 million to 65 million years ago: the tyrannosaurs Albertosaurus and its huge relative T. rex, with the small Troodon formosus, which reached just 6 feet (1.8 meters) in length and sported a quite huge brain. For the hadrosaur, Cooper and her colleagues examined thin sections of long leg bones and counted and measured the growth rings, which all specify a year of life. When it died this individual dino was about 13 years old.

Drew Lee, a postdoctoral fellow in Ohio University's College of Osteopathic Medicine who worked with Cooper on the finding said that ”The duck-billed dinosaur grew three to five times faster than any potential predators that lived next to it and by the time the duck-billed dinosaur was fully grown, the tyrannosaurs were just half grown -- it was a huge size difference”. Researchers said that the Hypacrosaurus moreover reached sexual maturity early, at only two or three years of age.

Source: foxnews.com

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Dinosaur fun planned for families

On Saturday, Aug. 16, at Stoudtburg Village in Adamstown, Dinosaur fans of all ages will have an exacting opportunity to discuss their passion with a renowned expert in the field as part of a special demonstration.

Jason Poole, a scientific artist who works for the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia and has a wealth of practice with paleontology projects across the world, will be hosting a free, hands-on seminar on dinosaurs from 1 to 4 p.m.

Poole said he expects that those who attend the session will take away knowledge of very old life that will spark a life-long interest in learning. Poole, a recognized expert in the field, is the creator of dinosaur illustrations that have comes out in publications for example National Geographic, with several books, together with the one he co-authored, The Lost Dinosaurs of Egypt. He is as well the head fossil preparator for the Bahariya Dinosaur Project. In 2000, Poole was part of a team of scientists who found the second largest dinosaur known to have existed, Paralititan stromeri, and he co-authored the announcement of the 65-ton species of huge dinosaur in Science in June 2001.

Glenda, Poole's mother, the owner of the Village Sweet Shoppe at Stoudtburg Village said "Jason is most happy when covered in fossil dust, teaching people all that are cool about dinosaurs”, she also said that the program is part of a series of community-oriented programs devised by the store owners.

Glenda Poole said that "We aim to have amazing each month, together with lots of children's activities". "I've been surprised at the number of adults who are excited that we'll be doing this. We're eager for a big turnout." Musical entertainment will as well be available during the afternoon, with the Happy Dutchmen German Band slated to execute Guests are invited to take lawn chairs. For more detail on this event, visit www.stoudtburgvillage.com.

Source: zwire.com

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Recent Research Challenges Notion, Did Dinosaur Soft Tissues still stay alive?

Paleontologists in 2005 hailed research that in fact showed that soft, pliable tissues had been recovered from dissolved dinosaur bones; most important finding that would substantially widen the known range of preserved biomolecules.

But new research challenges that finding and suggests that the supposed recovered dinosaur tissue is in reality biofilm – or slime. "I supposed that preserved soft tissues had been found, however I had to change my opinion," said Thomas Kaye, an associate researcher at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture at the University of Washington. "You must go where the science leads, and the science directs me to believe that this is bacterial biofilm."

The original research, published in Science magazine, claimed the finding of blood vessels and what appeared to be entire cells inside fossil bone of a Tyrannosaurus rex. The scientists had dissolved the bone in acid, leaving behind the blood vessel- and cell-like structures. But in a paper published July 30 in PloS ONE, a magazine of the open-access Public Library of Science, Kaye and his co-authors challenge that what was truly inside the T. rex bone was slimy biofilm created by bacteria that coated the voids once occupied by blood vessels and cells.

The scientists also dissolved bone in acid, as had been done earlier, and found the same soft tissue structures. They conducted a comparison by means of infrared mass spectroscopy and determined the structures were more strongly related to modern biofilm than modern collagen, extracellular proteins connected with bone. Carbon dating placed the origin at around 1960.

By an electron microscope, the researchers saw coatings on the vascular canal walls that contained gas bubbles, which they related with the presence of methane-producing bacteria. Also they examined what looked like tiny cracks within the vascular canals and found that they were in fact small troughs, or channels. Study at high magnification discovered the channels had rounded bottoms and bridged each other, indicating they were in nature created, likely by bacteria moving in a very thick solution.

Source: sciencedaily.com

Monday, July 28, 2008

Scientists aim camera at fossilized dinosaur footpaths

Scientists trying to study more about dinosaurs are snapping aerial photos of tracks left at the back millions of years ago close to southern Utah's Coral Pink Sand Dunes.

Researchers in a specially set helicopter crisscrossed an area called the Moccasin Mountain track site, shooting photos of fossilized footprints spotted across the red sandstone. Alan Titus, a Bureau of Land Management paleontologist, said it's the first time a helicopter has been used to catch full images of a track site. The tracks were left by at least six species of dinosaurs — few with three toes, others with five — that roamed the landscape regarding 180 million years ago.

The camera, able to select up tracks as small as a centimeter, will provide scientists a bird's-eye sight of footprints dotting the 3-acre site. The photos will be used to help make maps of the tracks and three-dimensional images therefore scientists can better recognize and understand dinosaur behavior. They'll as well be used on interpretive displays for visitors.

The fossilized tracks have been recognized locally for years at Moccasin Mountain, a well-liked spot for ATV riders. BLM scientists investigated final fall and found tens of thousands of tracks, ranging from bird-size footprints to others left by animals that were possibly 20 feet long. The tracks have been linked to three-toed species alike to the horned Dilophosaurus and five-toed animals related to crocodiles. Titus said that the site, which at present stopped to motorized traffic, was probably an oasis where early Jurassic dinosaurs found water and relief from desert-like temperatures. Matthews has taken related photographs at a track site close to Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Those were taken with the help of an airship.

Source: ap.google.com

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

In Gobi - Nearly intact Tarbosaurus dinosaur skeleton uncovered

Mongolian-Japanese group publicized Wednesday that they had discovered a nearly complete skeleton of a Tarbosaurus dinosaur. The Tarbosaurus is closely associated to the better-known Tyrannosaurus that found in the Gobi Desert. Experts think this is the first discovery of so good preserved a skeleton of a young dinosaur of this species. The skeleton is supposed to date back 70 million years. It was discovered by members of the Center of Paleontology in the Mongolian Academy of Sciences working with associates from Hayashibara Co., a biotechnology firm based in Okayama, Japan. An adult Tarbosaurus would in general grow to a length of 12 meters. The skeleton found in the Gobi measures 2 meters long and is assumed to have been five years old when it died.

Source: mongolia-web.com

Monday, July 21, 2008

The 'Biggest' dinosaur tooth discovered

An amateur fossil huntsman has discovered what might be the biggest domestic fossil of a dinosaur tooth in Hakusan, Ishikawa Prefecture.

Satoshi Utsunomiya, a 38-year-old company worker from Kanazawa, has found the fossil in June on red rock in the lower Cretaceous strata of the earth.

Experts think the time-worn tusk belonged to a therapod, a group of carnivorous dinosaurs that contain the Tyrannosaurus rex, which roamed the Earth 130 million years ago. Almost wholly preserved the tooth measures 8.2 centimeters in length and is 2.8 centimeters broad at its widest.

In accordance with the National Museum of Nature and Science, the biggest tooth found formerly in Japan is the 7.5-centimeter-long Mifuneryu, which was unearthed in Mifunemachi, Kumamoto Prefecture, in 1979. One specialist says the Hakusan tooth is "the biggest specimen found in ideal condition in this country." Nobuomi Matsuura, 75, an ex- director of the Hakusan Dinosaurs Park Shiramine in Hakusan, and Masahiro Tanimoto, 55, a special associate of the Palaeontological Society of Japan, authenticated the tooth.

Source: yomiuri.co.jp

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Laser lights up fragile dinosaur footprints

How do you study numerous thousand dinosaur footprints spread across 2 kilometers of a soft-rock outcrop at a slant of 60 degrees? Zap them with a laser.

The footprints, at the Fumanya site in the southern Pyrenees in Spain, record the passageway of giant long-necked dinosaurs called titanosaurs across a muddy area about 70 million years ago. The trouble is that the footprint layer is soft and crumbling, and climbing the steep surface may perhaps damage the tracks.

Therefore, Phil Manning of the University of Manchester, UK, and his team scanned the surface with LIDAR - a laser method that maps features in a comparable way to radar. The scanner and allied software generated a complete 3D contour map of the surface and prints.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Discovery channel sinks teeth into dinosaur series

Discovery Channel has specially made UK indie Dangerous Films to put together a series that gets under the skin of dinosaurs.

In The Super Dino (4x60') promises to give you an idea about dinosaurs in a manner they have not at all seen them before – from the inside, by combining CGI and biomechanics to see which were the fastest, biggest and deadliest dinosaurs. The show, place to air in late 2009, was urbanized with Discovery Channel's Peter Lovering and will be executive produced by Richard Dale of Dangerous Films.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Fossilized Feathers can Yield Dinosaur Colors

Artists can at present be able to paint dinosaurs and ancient birds and mammals in their accurate colors, thanks to the discovery of pigment residues in fossilized feathers.

In current years, paleontologists have found fossil feathers in about 50 rock formations pegged to dates ranging from the Jurassic era (from about 200 million to 150 million years ago) to the late Tertiary (from 65 million to about 2 million years back).

These feathers are conserved as residues of carbon that were formerly thought to be traces of feather-degrading bacteria.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

The giant dinosaur fossil is on the move

DINOSAUR paw marks from Ardley Quarry close to Bicester have been moved to a new address at the Oxfordshire Museum as division of a £127,000 project. The fossilized prints, found by workmen in 1997, were made 170 million years ago by a cruel meat-eating megalosaurus, a smaller cousin of the powerful tyrannosaurus rex.

The odd prints are mainly important for scientists since they show the beast breaking into a run, probably to pursue one of the vegetarian cetiosaurs whose tracks were found close by. The prints had been cut from Ardley Quarry in 2004 and stored to protect them from the elements, however were moved to the museum in Woodstock in a thorough operation last Tuesday, June 25. It's startling that footprints in the mud should last so long and that we can study so much from them. What's particular about these prints is that they show the carnivorous megalosaurus next to the cetiosaurs.

The prints are because of going on public display in the autumn, housed in a walled garden stocked with ancient varieties of plant for example the ginkgo biloba. The prints will be observed over by a life-size replica of a megalosaurus, and a new DVD documenting the story of the footprints will be sent to neighboring schools.

Friday, July 4, 2008

Stolen fossils are back home in Argentina

Four tones of dinosaur bones and fossils stolen from Argentina are back home after they were seized whereas being sold on the US black marketplace.

They were welcomed in Buenos Aires at a formal ritual attended by superior Argentine military officers, diplomats and the US representative to Argentina. US police recovered the relics following Interpol received a tip-off.

The haul is considered to be the biggest amount of fossils smuggled in the olden times of the fossil black marketplace. An Argentine air force band played by the airport runway as a Hercules military transport plane landed and unloaded numerous well-wrapped crates holding four tones of fossilized tree trunks, dinosaur bones and fossils, prehistoric crab claws and much more.

All had been stolen from Argentina - almost certainly mixed with rocks and minerals exported to the US. They were revealed - some wrapped in Argentine newspapers - two years ago being sold at a mineral fair in Tucson, Arizona, following an anonymous tip-off to Interpol. But it is not effortless to move such an immense quantity of dinosaur bones and it has in use until currently to bring them home.

The United State ambassador in Buenos Aires, Earl Anthony Wayne, who has a dedicated own interest in rocks and bones, was one of those in charge for bringing the prehistoric cargo back to Argentina. Southern Argentina is rich in dinosaur remains with new ones, at times formerly unknown species, being discovered on a normal basis. On the other hand, the black marketplace trade in prehistoric remains is a profitable one and Argentina is pleased to get this exacting cargo back.

Monday, June 30, 2008

In Utah Amazing Dinosaur Trove Discovered

The finding sheds new light on a Jurassic landscape subject by dinosaur giants that lived 145 to 150 million years ago (prehistoric time line).

In just three weeks of effort on federal land close to Hanksville, Utah, paleontologists declare they unearthed at least two meat-eating dinosaurs, a possible Stegosaurus, and four sauropods—long necked, long-tailed plant-eaters that can reach 130 feet (40 meters) long, making them the biggest animals ever to have walked the Earth.

"So far [the paleontologists] have revealed not just scattered bones however partial and complete skeletons. It's truly amazing," said Scott Foss, a paleontologist in the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM's) Salt Lake City office.

Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

Friday, May 23, 2008

Dinosaur footprints discovered on Arabian Peninsula

Dinosaur footprints recently discovered on the Arabian Peninsula is not just the first of their kind in the area, but they also make known more about the group behavior of the ancient animal.

The footprints left by a group of eleven plant eaters that walk on every four, along with a lone dino so as to stand on its hind legs, were found on a seashore mudflat in Yemen.

The second group of footprints, which start in the different direction, belonged to a straight standing dinosaur called an ornithopod. The scientists say it is not likely the sauropods were in risk or else felt in danger if they crossed pathway with the other dino, since it's too a plant eater.

Source: sciam.com

Sunday, May 4, 2008

World's biggest dinosaur on show in Dubai

The world's biggest meat eating dinosaur named Sue is presently on show at Children's City in Dubai.

The show of huge 42-meter long model of Sue, in teamwork with the Field Museum in Chicago, also held a variety of actions for visiting children as part of their Crazy Bone Day programme. Children of all age group contribute in unearth old fossils as well as dinosaur bones in a big sand ditch using spades, archaeological tools and some still used their bare hands. With the children's favorite, Barney the dinosaur's theme song playing in the surroundings, children also took part in innovative contest such as 'Crazy puzzle' and 'Catch the Caveman'.

The attention was on of Sue. The creative T. Rex, Sue was found on an Indian reservation land in North America and is assumed to be 65 million years old. Visitors also have the chance to view exciting details about the T.Rex all the way through interactive shows like small video documentaries about the dinosaur.

Source : hindu.com

Friday, April 18, 2008

Dino skeleton found on seashore

Not necessary to call scientists over the discovery of a large green dinosaur skeleton in Vernon Thursday morning. A city parks employee discovered the artificial bones on Kin seashore, a short outing from where it can generally be found, decorate the rooftop of the Okanagan Science Centre.

" Friday night somebody went up on the top and pushed off the skeleton "On Saturday morning people saw it on the land, somebody had pulled out the pieces and put down it in garbage cans. I was quite troubled about it for the reason that our volunteers spent hours to redecorate it.

"I guesstimate our dinosaur is not destroyed after all. "Plans were being prepared by the science centre to pick up the skeleton. The skeleton was completed by the late Marg Simm, one of the motivating forces at the back of the creation of the science centre.

Source: bclocalnews.com

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Dinosaur Museum in tender to pass Rare Triceratops Skeleton to Britain

The rare skeleton is the belongings of a private collector in Europe and is the celebrity attraction of a deal of dinosaur and other fossils at the public sale in Paris. It is estimated to obtain around 500,000 Euros but may possibly go a great deal higher as it has engrossed worldwide attention. "It would be truly wonderful if we could carry the dinosaur to Britain and in exacting The Dinosaur Museum in Dorchester""Not only is it the only one of its variety in Europe, although normally Britain does not contain any complete skeletons of this calibre. Most of the digs out dinosaurs in Britain are incomplete in similarity. Triceratops was not inhabitant to Britain but it would be grand for people to see such a momentous skeleton in the U.K"

The 7.5 meter ie, 24 foot long Triceratops is the only one of its variety in Europe. The skeleton, Triceratops horridus a three horned gigantic dinosaur was discovered in 2004 by rancher in the United States within North Dakota. The fossil skeleton be real 70 percent complete and is build up as a complete animal with the omitted bones throw in resin from other specimens. It's the fourth nearly all complete skeleton of Triceratops so far found and is only the second approximately complete dinosaur skeleton to go for deal by public sale.

Source: newswiretoday.com

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Museum of Natural History carries out 'Fossil Guy' programs in April

Don Johnson, "The Fossil Guy," returns during April with educational agenda at 2 p.m. Saturday afternoon at the University Of Iowa Museum Of Natural History.
The progression and topics are as follows:

April 12: "Once Tyrannosaurs Roamed Montana." Johnson will match up to and dissimilarity the different types of tyrannosaurs. A full sized facsimile of the "Peck's Rex" Tyrannosaurus rex skull will be in the show, and viewers will be gifted to touch real T. Rex Fossils as Johnson shares his knowledge searching for tyrannosaurus fossils in the western United States.

April 19: "Duck billed Dinosaurs - Good-looking Faces of the Cretaceous." Viewers can gain knowledge about Don's favorite group of dinosaurs "the duckbills” and see a little of the fossil bones of "Laura, the Juvenile Duck billed Dinosaur." He'll tell regarding the duckbills, as well as how they used apex on their heads, what barricade they had against predatory dinosaurs, and how they lift up their young.

April 26: "Raptor Dinosaurs: Feathered Killers" In this assembly, Viewers will gain knowledge about the latest inventions of fossil dinosaurs with feather imitation in China, as well as feathered raptor dinosaurs. Johnson will also discover the close connection between these dinosaurs along with modern birds. Fossils found by the raptor dinosaurs can be study to get an entire picture of the world where they lived over 65 million years before.

Source: media-newswire.com

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Dinosaur fossil was find out on the bus in Peru's mountains

Peru - officeholder found the fossil of a gigantic dinosaur jawbone while inspect a suspicious package on a bus in the mountains of Peru on Tuesday. The fossil, weigh up some 19 pounds, was found in the goods hold of the bus, which was start for the capital of Lima, and had been sent on the bus company's parcel service.

"The chin bone that was found could be from a triceratops, although dinosaurs like that have not at all been found in southern Peru.

Source: reuters.com

Monday, March 17, 2008

Dinosaur Extinction Conspiracy:

Extinction of Dinosaur is a hot topic for discuss. New theories for the upheaval that killed the dinosaurs are offered every couple of years. We have viewed the substantiation and have decided to present our own theory.

Dinosaur extinction:

The majority scientists consider that dinosaurs went vanished about 50 to 65 million years ago. Most scientists have the same opinion that man's notion of dinosaurs has been bordered to the history 180 years or so (the word itself wasn't even invented until 1841). Therefore, if we ascertained evidence of man's acquaintance of (coexistence with) dinosaurs during the last couple of centuries, "science" (as we know it) would be turned upside down.

The Theory of Dinosaur Extinction:

Dinosaur Extinction is a topical occurrence. Many of the great sea and land monsters went wiped out in a comprehensive flood about 4400 years ago. Some of these individuals survived and populated earth with man, until they too went vanished as man killed them for sport, safety, and expansion (like black bears of Florida and bison of the Western U.S.). We know this theory is world-shattering to many! However, we must admit -- it's not imaginative. In fact, it's really not a conjecture at all. It's based on the instituted truth of the Biblical record -- a trace that's not dependant on mankind's ever-changing vision of science and reason.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Malcolm McKenna a Fossil Seeker Dies at the age of 77

Malcolm C. McKenna, a paleontologist who hunted fossils beginning the Rockies to the Gobi Desert, from Patagonia in the direction of the Canadian Arctic, and who published a trustworthy categorization of mammals, died previous Monday in Boulder, Colo.His spouse of 55 years Priscilla, thought he broke his hip last year and had "never truly recovered" as of hip-replacement surgery. Dr. McKenna, who was a retreat Frick curator of vertebrate paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, A eminent point of Dr. McKenna's career as a head in the study of fossil mammals was the publication of "categorization of Mammals," written with Susan K. Bell, during 1997. It was the conclusions of 35 years of investigate.


Source: nytimes.com

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Dinosaurs to get new-fangled house in Heyuan

Authorities here have billed 50 million yuan for the building of a fossil museum this year, which will outline part of a dinosaur theme park.Heyuan, a city located in the mountains of Guangdong, set a Guinness World Record in 2005 for the world's leading gathering of dinosaur egg fossils it had 10,080 at the occasion.The 8,000-sq-m museum will house the gathering of dinosaur egg fossils, which has since grown-up to 13,800, in addition to bones and footprints that have been found in and around the city.

Four boys by chance discovered a group of dinosaur egg fossils in late 1995 when they were playing at a construction site close to their school. Then thousands of eggs that have been discovered, specialist have exposed 11 skeleton fossils and 168 footprint fossils since 2006.The city government of Heyuan plan to set up a museum and theme park to better protect its dinosaur fossils.

Source : china.org.cn

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Pathway dinosaur fossils in Gujarat's Jurassic belt

It's more than rare beauty that charm your interest as you drive mounting on the black hills of Kala Dungar, a fine 120 km from the nearby town of Bhuj in western India. The place, at 1,800 feet over sea level, has turn into a hunting ground for archaeologists who have discovered the fossils of dinosaurs at this point, important them to name it the Jurassic belt. With the continuously white desert of the Rann of Kutch beneath, these hills, completed up usually of sugar cube look-alike rocks, are coffers of the earth's past. Plans are now on to build up the place into a dinosaur fossil park instantly.

Number of dinosaur fossils have been found in this region which have been authentic by the Geological Survey of India (GSI) and the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI).Discussion are on to decide on make available Rs.120 million for the park.


Source : khaleejtimes.com

Friday, February 22, 2008

New dinosaur species discovered in E China

Chinese and Japanese scientists have confirmed a dinosaur fossil discovered in eastern Zhejiang Province during September was a new species of the animal. The fossil, measuring five meters high and 15 meter elongated, mostly was a sauropod, or a huge, lengthy -necked herbivorous dinosaur, in the Cretaceous age about 60 million years ago.
The fossils were discovered at the base of Hugong Mountain on the outskirts of Dongyang City. Following meticulous study and relationship of the fossils, the scientists completed that the dinosaur belonged to a new species. "It shows several unique features, dissimilar from any discovered dinosaur species. It will enhance the dinosaur family".
Source: xinhuanet.com

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Minute dinosaur discovered

Scientists trust that they have found confirmation of a tiny pterodactyl in China. The toothless flying reptile one-time studied at Brazil's national museum, where it was found to enclose a wing length of just 250 millimeters (9.8 inches) and surprisingly with curved toes. The majority pterodactyl fossils are found in coastal areas except this specimen was discovered in the western part of China's Liaoning region, which would have been enclosed in forest 120 million years back.

Therefore, scientists have named the reptile "Nemicolopterus crypticus," which means 'secret flying forest dweller', Paleontologist Alexander Kellner thought: "The basic significance of this discovery is that it release up a new episode in the history of evolution of these flying reptiles." until now, we not at all know that these animals were adapted to be alive in the canopies of the trees, which be there the case of the Nemicolopterus. "The tiny fossilized reptile covers a skull that is not fully combined, so it died sooner than attainments of adulthood, although the ends of the bones were developed, so it was not a hatchling also.

Source: channel4.com.

Monday, February 4, 2008

Dinosaur bones get there at Heritage Center

The fossils from an amazing dinosaur discover near Marmarth made their way to the North Dakota Heritage Center Monday morning. Stable the snow and cold, half dozen workforces spend more than half an hour work out how to carefully lift the 8,000 pound object outside a semi truck and into the Heritage Center. It arrived at this time from the Los Angeles area, where it was scanned by government scientists using a huge CAT scan like machine. A separate 1,500 pound piece with the animal's tail too is scheduled to get there at the Heritage Center. The dinosaur fossils, a duckbilled hadrosaur pet name Dakota is exceptional because it enclosed not only bones, although skin and tendons as well. It was original discovered by teenager Tyler Lyson on his uncle's farm in 1999 and fully dig out last year.

Refer: http://www.bismarcktribune.com/articles/2008/02/04/news/update/
doc47a78aadd109c701465233.txt

Monday, January 21, 2008

T. Rex has teen pregnancies

Dinosaurs have pregnancies as premature as age 8, far before they attain their maximum adult size. Researchers initiate medullary bone,the same tissue that allows birds to grow eggshells, into two new dinosaur specimens: the meat eater Allosaurus as well as the plant eater Tenontosaurus. It's too been found in Tyrannosaurus rex. The discovery allowed researchers to find the age of these pregnant dinosaurs were at 8, 10 and 18. These put forward that the mortal reached sexual maturity in advance. Dinosaurs grow up fast but only alive three to four years in adulthood. Medullary bone is only approximately for three to four weeks in females who are reproductively mature. The research too offers more confirmed that dinosaurs were less like reptiles and more like birds. While dinosaurs had young before adulthood, their early on sexual maturity was more a function of their tremendous size than some anatomical similarity to crocodiles.

Refer: http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080120/
NEWS01/80118063

Monday, January 14, 2008

Curious fish eating dinosaur contain crocodile like skull

A curious dinosaur has been shown to contain a skull that work like a fish eating crocodile, in spite of looking similar to a dinosaur. It also crazed two huge hand claws, conceivably used as snatch hooks to lift fish from the water. Somewhat digested fish scales plus teeth, and a dinosaur bone were bringing into being in the abdomen region of the animal, signifying that as a minimum of the time this dinosaur ate fish. Additionally, it had a very unusual skull that appears as part dinosaur and part crocodile.

The curious skull of Baryonyx is very stretch, with a bent or sinuous jaw margin as spot in large crocodiles and alligators. It moreover had chubby conical teeth, somewhat than the blade like jagged ones in meat eating dinosaurs, and a conspicuous spherical jaw tip that tire a rosette of teeth, more usually seen today in slender jawed fish eating crocodilians for example the Indian fish eating gharial.

Refer: http://www.huliq.com/47126/unusual-fish-eating-dinosaur-had-crocodile-skull

Monday, January 7, 2008

Biting insects destroy dinosaurs

Insects might have also made it harder for dinosaurs to endure by change the nature of plant life on Earth. Bees along with other pollinators aid to promote the fast spread of flowering plants, important to the loss of vegetarian dinosaur’s habitual food sources. As the plant intake dinosaurs reject, as a result would their predators.

The theory helps give details why dinosaurs took so extended to die off, the time at which the dinosaurs nowhere to be found, among the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods, is well-known as the K-T Boundary. Rising new diseases spread by biting insects, joint through the spread of flowering plants, and struggle with insects for plant resources, was "absolutely well-suited" with a extended process of death. In dinosaur faeces we bring into being nematodes, trematodes and even protozoa that might have caused dysentery and additional abdominal disturbances. The infective period of these intestinal fleas are passed by filth visiting insects.

Refer: http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article3315197.ece

Thursday, January 3, 2008

Scientists find out Asia's heaviest dinosaur in China

Scientists in central China's Henan Province proclaimed on Tuesday that they had unearthed fossils of the heaviest dinosaur in Asia. The fossils were find out in an region between Santun township and Liudian township in Ruyang county, along with the dinosaur which has an unusually large coelom , the body cavity that having the digestive area , has been recognized as Asia's heaviest said Wu Guochang, common engineer of the provincial land resources department.

The dinosaur measures 18 meters elongated and its sacrum , part of the vertebrae in the lower backside , is as large as 1.31 meters, creation it broader than to of the dinosaur fossil unearthed in Gansu last year, which was then recognized as Asia's heaviest dinosaur.


Refer : http://www.antara.co.id/en/arc/2008/1/3/scientists-discover-asias-heaviest
-dinosaur-in-china