New Predator Eodromaeus Discovered in Early Dinosaur Graveyard

A team of paleontologists and geologists from Argentina and the United States found a lanky dinosaur that roamed South America in search of prey. They announced the discovery on Jan 13, 2011 where the age of dinosaurs began, approximately 230 million years ago.

The new dinosaur has been named as Eodromaeus, (dawn runner). It weighed only 10 to 15 pounds with long neck and tail.

Paul Sereno, University of Chicago paleontologist reported "It really is the earliest look we have at the long line of meat eaters that would eventually terminate in Tyrannosaurus rex near the end of the dinosaur era”.

Paul Sereno and his colleagues illustrate the complete skeleton of the new species in Jan14, 2011 issue of the journal Science. The paper describes the dawn of dinosaurs era.

Niggling scientific questions at the dawn of the dinosaur era comprise what gave them an edge over competitors and how quickly did they rise to governance. In Eodromaeus' day, other kinds of reptiles outnumbered dinosaurs, like squat lizard-like rhynchosaurs and mammal-like reptiles.

In red cliffs on the extreme side of the valley, larger plant and meat-eating dinosaurs had evolved many times the size of Eoraptor and Eodromaeus. But it would be even later when they dominated all land habitats in the ensuing Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.

Paul Sereno said, this story suggests that lucky break for dinosaurs but rather a long period of evolutionary experimentation in the shadow of other groups.
"The dawn of the age of dinosaurs," Martinez remarked, is coming into focus.

The World's Largest Dinosaurs exhibition

American Museum of Natural History announced a major new exhibition, The World's Largest Dinosaurs from April 16, 2011 to January 2, 2012.

It exhibits the long-necked and long-tailed sauropod ranges in size from 15 to 150 feet long. It will take visitors beyond the bones. It also exhibits Mamenchisaurus and will take visitors shedding light on how heart rate, respiration, metabolism and reproduction are linked to size. It offers visitors an utterly new perception on this fascinating group of animals. It showcases how some of the largest organisms ever to walk the Earth actually lived.

The World's Largest Dinosaurs will answer for the questions like how an extremely large animal breathes, eats, moves, and survives.

The exhibition will examine the tools and methods paleontologists use to unfasten the secrecy of how the massive animals like sauropod were able to stay alive successfully for tens of millions of years and why they grew to be so large, how much they ate, how they moved, and how their massive bodies worked so well in their environment.

The exhibits also include specimens from the Museum's world renowned fossil collection like sauropod limbs, brain endocasts, vertebrae, skin impressions and other ancient specimens. At the end, the exhibition will pioneer visitors to how dinosaurs are revealed in the field through a replicated dig site.