Dinosaurs: New Findings & Theories

[Kondoru]

Its a bit small for that...

...maybe one of the dwarf planets so popular those days?

And small deer have fighting tusks, why not a dino?

 

[ramonmercado]

Organic material survives fossilisation.

Molecular analysis supports controversial claim for dinosaur cells
New evidence adds heat to the argument over prehistoric dinosaur tissue.
http://www.nature.com/news/molecular-an ... ls-1.11637
Kate Wong
22 October 2012

Do fossils of dinosaurs, such as Tyrannosaurus rex, contain soft tissues?
SCOTTROBERTANSELMO, VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

RALEIGH—Twenty years ago, paleontologist Mary Schweitzer made an astonishing discovery. Peering through a microscope at a slice of dinosaur bone, she spotted what looked for all the world like red blood cells. It seemed utterly impossible—organic remains were not supposed to survive the fossilization process—but test after test indicated that the spherical structures were indeed red blood cells from a 67-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex. In the years that followed, she and her colleagues discovered other apparent soft tissues, including what seem to be blood vessels and feather fibers. But controversy accompanied their claims. Skeptics argued that the alleged organic tissues were instead biofilm—slime formed by microbes that invaded the fossilized bone.

Schweitzer and her colleagues have continued to amass support for their interpretation. The latest evidence comes from a molecular analysis of what look to be bone cells, or osteocytes, from T. rex and Brachylophosaurus canadensis. The researchers isolated the possible osteocytes and subjected them to several tests. When they exposed the cell-like structures to an antibody that targets a protein called PHEX found only in bird osteocytes* (birds are descended from dinosaurs), the structures reacted, as would be expected of dinosaur osteocytes. And when the team subjected the supposed dinosaur cells to other antibodies that target DNA, the antibodies bound to material in small, specific regions inside the apparent cell membrane.

Furthermore, using a technique called mass spectrometry, the investigators found amino acid sequences of proteins in extracts of the dinosaur bone that matched sequences from proteins called actin, tubulin and histone4 that are present in the cells of all animals. Although some microbes have proteins that are similar to actin and tubulin, the researchers note that soil-derived E. coli as well as sediments that surrounded the two dinosaur specimens failed to bind to the actin and tubulin antibodies that bound to the extract containing the apparent osteocytes.

Schweitzer and her collaborators detailed their findings in a paper released online October 16 in the journal Bone and in a talk given October 17 in Raleigh at the annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. “Here’s the data in support of a biofilm origin,” Schweitzer said in her presentation as she showed a blank slide. “We haven’t found any yet.”


More from Scientific American.

*Update, Oct. 20, 2012, 11:24 a.m.: Mary Schweitzer emailed me to clarify a point that did not come across in her talk. “PHEX is actually found in many taxa. However proteins have thousands of antibody binding sites on them. Some antibodies that bind to epitopes shared among groups are broadly cross reactive. Ours, OB 7.3 was selected for only one epitope out of thousands, and that epitope is, so far as it has been tested by the primary researchers, only reactive to osteoctyes from birds. It has been tested against bird osteoblasts, cells on the same lineage as osteocytes, and does not react, and it does not react with osteocytes from non avian taxa tested. So it is the selective specificity of the antibody for bird osteocytes that is important. We are not saying birds and dinos are the only ones that have the protein, but because the sequence is inherited, it has different ‘shapes’ in each group and the ‘shape’ this antibody binds seems to be unique to bird osteocytes in living taxa.”

Nature doi:10.1038/nature.2012.11637

This article was originally published by Scientific American on 18 October 2012.

Related stories and links

From nature.com

China's dinosaur hunter: The ground breaker
05 September 2012
Rise of the feathered dinosaurs
02 July 2012
First ancient proteome revealed
09 December 2011
Tyrannosaurs were power-walkers
07 November 2011

 

[ramonmercado]

Giant Pterosaur Needed Cliffs, Downward-Sloping Runways to Taxi, Awkwardly Take Off Into Air
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 132103.htm

A fully articulated skeleton of Quetzalcoatlus hangs in the Museum of Texas Tech University. The animal stood as tall as a giraffe and needed a slope to taxi into the air. (Credit: Texas Tech University)

ScienceDaily (Nov. 7, 2012) — It weighed about 155 pounds and had a 34-foot wingspan, close to the size of an F-16 fighter jet. A five-foot-long skull looked down from a standing height similar to that of a modern giraffe. By all measures, the ancient pterosaur Quetzalcoatlus was a Texas-sized giant of the air and created a frightening shadow as it soared across the sky.

It pushed the very boundaries of size to the brink, considered the largest flying animal yet to be discovered. Any larger, and it would have had to walk. But its bulk caused researchers to wonder how such a heavy animal with relatively flimsy wings became airborne.

Sankar Chatterjee, Horn Professor of Geosciences and curator of paleontology at the Museum of Texas Tech University, will describe the flight dynamics of this animal on November 7 during the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Charlotte, N.C.

Using a computer simulation, Chatterjee and his colleagues unraveled the secrets of the flight for the massive pterosaur, discovered in the Big Bend area of Texas, which has captured the imagination of paleontologists and public so profoundly.

"This animal probably flew like an albatross or a frigate bird in that it could soar and glide very well," Chatterjee said. "It spent most of its time in the air. But when it comes to takeoff and landing, they're so awkward that they had to run. If it were taking off from a cliff, then it was OK. But if Quetzalcoatlus were on the ground, it probably had to find a sloping area like a river bank, and then run quickly on four feet, then two to pick up enough power to get into the air. It needed an area to taxi."

Speculation exists on what this animal looked like, Chatterjee said. Some researchers suggested recently that Quetzalcoatlus could have weighed up to 550 pounds and used forelimbs as a catapult in the same manner of a common vampire bat to create a standing takeoff.

However, Chatterjee said that computer modeling proved what is possible for a tiny, lightweight, 1-ounce bat appeared impossible for an animal 10,000 times heavier.

Flight performance seems to degrade systematically with body size because power decreases with body size, he said. Above a particular size, the available power is insufficient and flapping flight is not possible. The animal would not be able to maintain height when flying at its maximum power speed and exert full power.

"Its enormous wings must have been difficult to manage," Chatterjee said. "Each wing had at least a 16-foot span, so during its full downstroke it would smash its wing resulting in crash landing. A standing takeoff of flying of such a heavy animal violates the laws of physics."

Like today's condors and other large birds, Quetzalcoatlus probably relied on updraft to remain in the air, Chatterjee said. It was a superb glider with a gliding angle close to two degrees and a cruising speed of 36 miles per hour. Their bones were entirely hollow, filled with air, lightweight and strong. This is how such a large animal could weigh so little and still grow to its enormous size.

The animal had high-aspect-ratio wings like those of modern seabirds, meaning the wings were long, narrow, flat and pointed. It soared in open airspace by exploiting thermals or wind gradient above the ocean surface. Trading for size, the wings were structurally weak for vigorous flapping, causing the pterosaur difficulty during ground takeoff.

"Sooner or later the animal would come to the ground, especially during foraging and nesting," Chatterjee said. "Like albatrosses and the Great Kori bustards, which weigh 20 to 40 pounds, ground takeoff was agonizing and embarrassing for Quetzalcoatlus. With a slight headwind and as little as a 10-degree downhill slope, an adult would be able to take off in a bipedal running start to pick up flying speed, just like a hang glider pilot. Once it got off the ground, the giant pterodactyl entered into thermal and soared like majestic masters of the air."

 

[ramonmercado]

New Evidence On Dinosaurs' Role in Evolution of Bird Flight
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 130817.htm

An artist’s impression of what the Archaeopteryx lithographica would have looked like in flight. (Credit: Image by artist Carl Buel)

ScienceDaily (Nov. 21, 2012) — A new study looking at the structure of feathers in bird-like dinosaurs has shed light on one of nature's most remarkable inventions -- how flight might have evolved.

Academics at the Universities of Bristol, Yale and Calgary have shown that prehistoric birds had a much more primitive version of the wings we see today, with rigid layers of feathers acting as simple airfoils for gliding.

Close examination of the earliest theropod dinosaurs suggests that feathers were initially developed for insulation, arranged in multiple layers to preserve heat, before their shape evolved for display and camouflage.

As evolution changed the configuration of the feathers, their important role in the aerodynamics and mechanics of flight became more apparent. Natural selection over millions of years ultimately modified dinosaurs' forelimbs into highly-efficient, feathered wings that could rapidly change its span, shape and area -- a key innovation that allowed dinosaurs to rule the skies.

This basic wing configuration has remained more or less the same for the past 130 million years, with bird wings having a layer of long, asymmetrical flight feathers with short covert feathers on top. They are able to separate and rotate these flight feathers to gain height, change direction and even hover.

This formation allows birds to move in such a way as to produce both lift and thrust simultaneously -- a capability that man, with the help of technology, is still trying to successfully imitate.

The research, published November 21 in Current Biology, looked at the dinosaur Anchiornis huxleyi and the Jurassic bird Archaeopteryx lithographica. The latter is 155 million years old and widely considered to be the earliest known bird, presenting a combination of dinosaur and bird characteristics.

Their wings differed from modern day birds in being composed of multiple layers of long feathers, appearing to represent early experiments in the evolution of the wing. Although individual feathers were relatively weak due to slender feather shafts, the layering of these wing feathers is likely to have produced a strong airfoil.

The inability to separate feathers suggests that taking off and flying at low speeds may have been limited, meaning that wings were primarily used in high-speed gliding or flapping flight.

Dr Jakob Vinther, from the University of Bristol's Schools of Biological and Earth Sciences, said: "We are starting to get an intricate picture of how feathers and birds evolved from within the dinosaurs. We now seem to see that feathers evolved initially for insulation. Later in evolution, more complex vaned or pinnate feathers evolved for display.

"These display feathers turned out to be excellent membranes that could have been utilised for aerial locomotion, which only very late in bird evolution became what we consider flapping flight. This new research is shedding light not just on how birds came to fly, but more specifically on how feathers came to be the way they are today -- one of the most amazing and highly specialised structures in nature."

Dr Nicholas Longrich of Yale University added: "By studying fossils carefully, we are now able to start piecing together how the wing evolved. Before, it seemed that we had more or less modern wings from the Jurassic onwards. Now it's clear that early birds were more primitive and represented transitional forms linking birds to dinosaurs. We can see the wing slowly becoming more advanced as we move from Anchiornis, to Archaeopteryx, to later birds."

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Bristol.

Journal Reference:

Nicholas R. Longrich, Jakob Vinther, Qingjin Meng, Quangguo Li, Anthony P. Russell. Primitive Wing Feather Arrangement in Archaeopteryx lithographica and Anchiornis huxleyi. Current Biology, 21 November 2012 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2012.09.052

 

[Kondoru]

Thats right. Admit that birds are dinosaura.

we have been trying to get over that ever since victorian times.

 

[ramonmercado]

Thats right. Admit that birds are dinosaura.

we have been trying to get over that ever since victorian times.

Now, I don't want you to think I'm obsessed but I'd like to see to see Pterodactyls cloned and trained to hunt farmers.

 

[Mythopoeika]

Thats right. Admit that birds are dinosaura.

we have been trying to get over that ever since victorian times.

Now, I don't want you to think I'm obsessed but I'd like to see to see Pterodactyls cloned and trained to hunt farmers.

Yeah, the 50 ft tall robots won't be enough! :lol:

 

[ramonmercado]

Thats right. Admit that birds are dinosaura.

we have been trying to get over that ever since victorian times.

Now, I don't want you to think I'm obsessed but I'd like to see to see Pterodactyls cloned and trained to hunt farmers.

Yeah, the 50 ft tall robots won't be enough! :lol:

I can see the Pterodactyls perched on the Robots shoulders.

 

[ramonmercado]

New contender for oldest dinosaur

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20594147

Nyasasaurus parringtoni would have shared the land with silesaurs, identified as dinosaurs' closest relatives

Palaeontologists have found what is likely to be the oldest known dinosaur, filling in a yawning evolutionary gap.

A study in Biology Letters describes Nyasasaurus parringtoni, a new species from 10-15 million years before the previous earliest dinosaur specimens.

It walked on two legs, measured 2-3m in length with a large tail and weighed between 20 and 60kg.

The find suggests that many millions of years passed between dinosaurs' first members and their dominance on land.

"It fills a gap between what we previously knew to be the oldest dinosaurs and their other closest relatives," report co-author Paul Barrett, of the Natural History Museum in London, told BBC News.


The find shores up the idea that dinosaurs evolved on the southern parts of the supercontinent Pangaea
"There was this big gap in the fossil record where dinosaurs should've been present and this fossil neatly fills that gap."

However, the team behind the work has stopped short of definitively calling N parringtoni the earliest dinosaur, because the fossil skeletons used to define it were incomplete: one upper arm bone and six vertebrae.

The early evolution of dinosaurs is difficult to unpick, as a rich variety of reptiles were proliferating at the time - and some may even have independently evolved characteristics that are associated with dinosaurs.

But the researchers, from the University of Washington and University of California Berkeley in the US and the Natural History Museum, saw a few features that are unambiguously those of dinosaurs, notably what is called an "elongated deltopectoral crest" that served as an anchor for strong pectoral muscles.

Lead author of the research Sterling Nesbitt, of the University of Washington Seattle, led a team that in 2010 reported the finding of dinosaurs' oldest relative, a member of a group called the silesaurs.

Continue reading the main story
Our ancient planet


Earth's timeline: Explore our planet's 4.6-billion-year history
Supercontinent break-up: How Pangaea came apart
Prehistoric life: See the beasts that roamed long before humans evolved
It now appears that those creatures shared the southern part of the supercontinent Pangaea - now South America, Africa, Antarctica and Australia - with N parringtoni.

"Those animals were the earliest of this group that led up toward dinosaurs," explained Dr Barrett. "Now this takes dinosaurs back to the right kind of time when those two groups would have split apart from each other."

As it closes that evolutionary gap, it shows that dinosaurs did not start out as dominant as they later became.

"We push the origin of dinosaurs further back in time to a time when lots of reptile groups are evolving," Dr Barrett said.

"Dinosaurs start out as a very insignificant group of reptiles - all relatively small animals, relatively rare in comparison with other reptile groups - and it's only a bit later in their history that they suddenly explode and take over as the dominant forms of life for nearly 100 million years."

 

[ramonmercado]

Pannoniasaurus inexpectatus: World’s first freshwater mosasaur
http://www.nature.com/news/pannoniasaur ... ur-1.12128
Becky Crew
21 December 2012

Skeletal anatomy of the first freshwater mosasaur, Pannoniasaurus inexpectatus, found in Hungary.

MAKADI L, CALDWELL MW, OSI A (2012 )

Fossilised bones of a new species of mosasaur have been unearthed in Hungary, providing the first evidence that these giant, aquatic lizards lived in both freshwater and marine environments.

Since the first mosasaur was discovered in 1764, thousands of specimens have been discovered all over the world. But because there was no evidence that they lived in freshwater environments, it’s been assumed that they were exclusively marine predators.

In 1999, a single vertebra was discovered alongside a variety of fish and crocodile teeth in the waste dump of a coal mine in Ajka, an industrial town in Western Hungary. This is the first known specimen of the mosasaur – named Pannoniasaurus inexpectatus, because no one expected to find one in what used to be a freshwater environment. The following year, a dried-up river system known as the Csehbánya Formation was exposed by a site named Iharkút, discovered about 20 km away at an open-pit bauxite mine. Over several years, more fragmentary vertebrae of Pannoniasaurus were found at the site, as well as the bones of turtles, lizards, amphibians, alligators, pterosaurs and more fish. But these fossils were so fragmentary, they were mistaken for the bones of large terrestrial lizards.

It wasn’t until recently that more bones, including the all-important skull bones, were discovered at Iharkút, causing the excavators to realise that they had unwittingly been piecing together a new, very unusual species of ancient aquatic reptile.

“Until now, mosasauroids have been regarded as an exclusively marine group. However, with the discovery and description of Pannoniasaurus, mosasauroid evolution is now understood as also having involved important and unsuspected adaptations to freshwater ecosystems,” the team, led by palaeontologist Laszlo Makadi from the Hungarian Natural History Museum, report in today’s issue of PLoS One. The researchers have now collected over 100 Pannoniasaurus bones, from individuals large and small, young and old, from the Csehbánya Formation, and the site has never produced a single marine or brackish faunal or floral specimen.

According to the researchers, Pannoniasaurus lived between 85.8–83.5 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous period, and it thrived in a freshwater river system of an island landmass in the western Tethyan Archipelago – a series of island chains that sat between the African and Eurasian landmasses in what once was the Tethys Ocean.

Comparing its vertebrae and other bones to those of known marine mososaurs, the team suggested that Pannoniasaurus could have grown up to six metres long, making it the largest known aquatic predator of this palaeonenvironment. It appears to have been super-specialised for its freshwater environment, with a flattened skull like a crocodile for ambushing prey on both land and in shallow water, and while there is little evidence for what its limbs would have looked like, the researchers suggest that it could have had limbs like a terrestrial lizard. They say Pannoniasaurus probably adapted to its environment like modern freshwater river dolphins adapted to life in the Amazon, Ganges, Yangtze and La Plata River.

The smallest vertebra found likely belonged to a Pannoniasaurus that was just 70 cm long, which, according to the researchers, means it’s likely that this area, and Ajka nearby, was a place were many individuals of varying sizes and ages lived all year round, rather than migrating from marine environments for seasonal food or breeding activity. But they concede that definitive evidence is lacking. “Whether or not Pannoniasaurus was restricted to freshwater environments, or perhaps instead was a seasonal, opportunistic migrant and consumer in these habitats, remains uncertain,” they write in their report. “[However,] sedimentological, taphonomical (fossilising conditions), morphological and geochemical evidences suggest the former.”

Nature doi:10.1038/nature.2012.12128

This article was originally published by Scientific American on 19 December 2012.

Related stories and links
From nature.com
China's dinosaur hunter: The ground breaker
05 September 2012
Ancient sea jelly makes tree of life wobble
07 September 2011
Weird wonders lived past the Cambrian
12 May 2010

 

[ramonmercado]

How much would the tooth fairy leave for this?

Giant tooth hints at truly monumental dinosaur
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2 ... osaur.html
14:20 21 December 2012 by Michael Marshall

They were the biggest animals ever to walk the Earth – now a new fossil suggests the largest sauropod dinosaurs were even bigger than we thought.

Sauropods were enormous plant-eating beasts with long necks and tails. The biggest are aptly named titanosaurs, and could reach 30 metres long and weigh 80 tonnes.

But some titanosaurs may have been even bigger than that, says Rodolfo García at the National University of Río Negro in Argentina. He has found a 7.5-centimetre-long titanosaur tooth at Salitral de Santa Rosa in Río Negro – that makes it 32 per cent longer than the previous record holder.

Did it belong to a titanosaur even bigger than any found so far? García says it is possible: the tooth probably came from an enormous skull, he says, which suggests a monumental body.

Philip Mannion of Imperial College London points out that we do not yet have good fossil skulls of the largest titanosaurs, so the tooth might simply belong to one of them. We'll need to find more of the dinosaur from which the tooth came to convince him that it was an even bigger beast.

If more evidence was found to suggest its existence, the next task would be to name it. Palaeontologists would need to go one better than Ultrasaurus, Supersaurus and Megalosaurus but Colossasaurus is still up for grabs.

Journal reference: Cretaceous Research, doi.org/j2w

To win a New Scientist goodie bag, put your best suggestions for genus and species names in the comments box below.

 

[Kondoru]

Thats just what we need for Xmas...

...A great big sauropod!

 

[ramonmercado]

Thats just what we need for Xmas...

...A great big sauropod!

They're plant eating; the worse they'll do is eat your hedge.

 

[GNC]

Thats just what we need for Xmas...

...A great big sauropod!

They're plant eating; the worse they'll do is eat your hedge.

Or trip over you.

 

[ramonmercado]

Inside the Head of a Dinosaur: Research Reveals New Information On the Evolution of Dinosaur Senses
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 174154.htm

Fossil skull of the Cretaceous therizinosaur Erlikosaurus andrewsi (Credit: Image by Emily Rayfield, University of Bristol)

Dec. 19, 2012 — An international team of scientists, including PhD student Stephan Lautenschlager and Dr Emily Rayfield of the University of Bristol, found that the senses of smell, hearing and balance were well developed in therizinosaurs and might have affected or benefited from an enlarged forebrain. These findings came as a surprise to the researchers as exceptional sensory abilities would be expected from predatory and not necessarily from plant-eating animals.

Therizinosaurs are an unusual group of theropod dinosaurs which lived between 145 and 66 million years ago. Members of this group had evolved into up to 7m (23ft) large animals, with more than 50cm (20in) long, razor-sharp claws on their forelimbs, elongated necks and a coat of primitive, down-like feathers along their bodies. Although closely related to carnivorous dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor, and in spite of their bizarre appearance, therizinosaurs were probably peaceful herbivores.

Inspired by this paradox, the international team of palaeontologists decided to take the first close look inside the heads of these enigmatic dinosaurs.

They studied the brain and inner ear anatomy of therizinosaurs using high-resolution CT scanning and 3D computer visualisation to find out more about their sensory and cognitive capabilities and how these had evolved with the transition from meat- to plant-eating.

The focus of the study was the skull of Erlikosaurus andrewsi -- a 3-4m (10-13ft) therizinosaur, which lived more than 90 million years ago in what is now Mongolia.

Lead author, Stephan Lautenschlager of Bristol's School of Earth Sciences said: "Our results suggest that therizinosaurs would have used their well-developed sensory repertoire to their advantage which, for herbivorous animals, must have played an important role in foraging, in the evasion of predators or in social complexity.

"This study sheds a new light on the evolution of dinosaur senses and shows it is more complex than we thought."

Co-author, Professor Lindsay Zanno of the North Carolina Museum of Natural History and the North Carolina State University agrees: "Once you've evolved a good sensory toolkit, it's probably worth hanging on to, whether you're hunting or being hunted."

Fellow author Lawrence Witmer, Chang Professor of Paleontology at the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine said: "Of course the actual brain tissue is long gone from the fossil skulls but we can use CT scanning to visualize the cavity that the brain once occupied and then generate 3D computer renderings of the olfactory bulbs and other brain parts."

This study has important ramifications for our understanding of how sensory function evolved in different dinosaur groups and whether it was developed as a response to their environment or simply inherited by their ancestors. In particular, in the light of the transition from dinosaurs to birds, these results should prove to be very interesting.

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Bristol.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

Stephan Lautenschlager, Emily J. Rayfield, Perle Altangerel, Lindsay E. Zanno, Lawrence M. Witmer. The Endocranial Anatomy of Therizinosauria and Its Implications for Sensory and Cognitive Function. PLoS ONE, 2012; 7 (12): e52289 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0052289

 

[ramonmercado]

Dinosaurs May Have Shaken Their Tail Feathers to Woo Mates
BY NADIA DRAKE01.04.139:30 AM
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/ ... -feathers/

Oviraptor (here, “Ingenia” yanshini) courtship display. Credit: Sydney Mohr, University of Alberta

Visiting Mongolia during the Cretaceous might have revealed a variety of birdlike dinosaurs strutting their stuff and using a spectacular fan of tail feathers to woo potential mates.

The birdlike dinosaurs are oviraptors, so named because their discoverer suspected the first specimen had been fossilized in the act of stealing eggs from a Protoceratops nest. Feathered but flightless, oviraptors had strong, flexible tails tipped with a spray of multicolored feathers, a team of paleontologists reported Jan. 4 in Acta Palaeontologica Polonica.

Studying oviraptor fossils, as well as present-day birds and reptiles, and digitally recreating an oviraptor tail helped the team conclude that, like peacocks and turkeys, oviraptors shook their tail feathers to attract mates.

“You have, I think, a tail that is specifically adapted to flaunt its feathers,” said Scott Persons, study author and doctoral student at the University of Alberta. “Swish it from side to side, show off the tail, strike a sinuous pose and hold it.”


The report is the first to demonstrate the display function for the tail feathers of oviraptors using data from both fossils and living animals, said Xing Xu, a paleontologist at China’s Institute for Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology. “In particular, the digital model represents a more rigorous analysis than previous studies concerning the tail feather function,” said Xu, who has also studied oviraptors. The bipedal dinosaurs range from about turkey-size to more than 15 feet long.

Persons began studying oviraptors while working on his master’s thesis. “When I saw the tail of my first oviraptor, it was immediately obvious that something very strange, very different was going on with it,” Persons said. He was looking at the tail of oviraptor Khaan mckennai, unearthed in Mongolia. Oviraptors have short tails, with many vertebrae squished together. The compact joints create a flexible, sinuous appendage, with bony spines that offer attachment points for large, strong muscles.

Additionally, the tips of some oviraptor tails also contain a fused vertebral structure, called a pygostyle. Already, pygostyles had been described as the connecting point for long tail feathers in the well-preserved fossil of oviraptor Similicaudipteryx yixianensis.

When Persons studied more fossils, he found pygostyles in three additional species – good evidence that the feather-hosting structure isn’t an aberration, and is common within the group. Species that didn’t have defined pygostyles still had a set of inflexible vertebrae fused together near the tail tip, Persons said. Today, pygostyles are rare. “You can find pygostyles in one kind of modern day animal, and that’s birds,” Persons said.

Next, the team considered how such a tail might function, and used the tail anatomy of modern day birds and reptiles — such as crocodiles, chickens, lizards, and pigeons — as a guide. Based on both those observations and the bony fossil record, the team digitally reconstructed an oviraptor tail, revealing a musculature dominated by strong, dexterous muscles. “The big muscles in the tail were those associated with swinging and swishing, pulling and tugging the tail up and down, and side to side,” Persons describes.

But what might such a strong, feather-tipped tail be used for? Not flight. And unlike the shorter feathery ‘dinofuzz’ covering the rest of an oviraptor’s body, the tip feathers are long, and unsuited for trapping body heat. “Think of modern day birds that don’t use their tail feathers for flight. What do they use them for?” Persons said. “They use their big tail feather fans for display.”

The study isn’t the first to suggest that, in addition to warmth and flight, dinosaurs may have used feathers to attract mates. “We are now beginning to understand the potential functions of feather types on different parts of the body,” said paleontologist Darla Zelenitsky of the University of Calgary. In October, she described a similar display behavior in another group of dinosaurs, called ornithomimosaurs. Zelenitsky says these results are consistent with hers, which pointed toward forearm feathers as playing a role in display.

Persons is going to continue studying the oviraptor tails, with the goal of adding more fossils to the analysis and determining whether males and females were similarly spangled – and what that might mean for courtship behaviors. “We’re starting to get to the point where we can move away from simple description,” Persons said. “We’ve got enough information in front of us that we can start connecting the dots and thinking about more sophisticated things like behavior.”

 

[Mythopoeika]

Dinosaurs May Have Shaken Their Tail Feathers to Woo Mates

'Woo Mates'? Well, it is Mongolia I suppose.

 

[rynner2]

Feathers can be fluffy (think of eider down), so does this mean dinos were the original fluffy woo woos?

 

[Kondoru]

These Dinos are very different to the ones I knew in my childhood...Im beggining to wonder if they are actualy birds....

 

[ramonmercado]

Australia's Stampeding Dinosaurs Take a Dip: Largely Tracks of Swimming Rather Than Running Animals
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 190250.htm

Hypothesized reconstruction of the small Lark Quarry trackmaker. (Credit: Illustration by Anthony Romilio, The University of Queensland)

Jan. 8, 2013 — Queensland paleontologists have discovered that the world's only recorded dinosaur stampede is largely made up of the tracks of swimming rather than running animals.

The University of Queensland's (UQ) PhD candidate Anthony Romilio led the study of thousands of small dinosaur tracks at Lark Quarry Conservation Park, central-western Queensland.

Mr Romilio says the 95-98 million-year-old tracks are preserved in thin beds of siltstone and sandstone deposited in a shallow river when the area was part of a vast, forested floodplain.

"Many of the tracks are nothing more than elongated grooves, and probably formed when the claws of swimming dinosaurs scratched the river bottom," Romilio said.

"Some of the more unusual tracks include 'tippy-toe' traces -- this is where fully buoyed dinosaurs made deep, near vertical scratch marks with their toes as they propelled themselves through the water.

"It's difficult to see how tracks such as these could have been made by running or walking animals.

"If that was the case we would expect to see a much flatter impression of the foot preserved in the sediment."

Mr Romilio said that similar looking swim traces made by different sized dinosaurs also indicated fluctuations in the depth of the water.

"The smallest swim traces indicate a minimum water depth of about 14 cm, while much larger ones indicate depths of more than 40 cm," Mr Romilio said.

"Unless the water level fluctuated, it's hard to envisage how the different sized swim traces could have been preserved on the one surface.

"Some of the larger tracks are much more consistent with walking animals, and we suspect these dinosaurs were wading through the shallow water."

Mr Romilio said the swimming dinosaur tracks at Lark Quarry belonged to small, two-legged herbivorous dinosaurs known as ornithopods.

"These were not large dinosaurs," Mr Romilio said.

"Some of the smaller ones were no larger than chickens, while some of the wading animals were as big as emus."

The researchers interpreted the large spacing among many consecutive tracks to indicate that the dinosaurs were moving downstream, perhaps using the current of the river to assist their movements.

Given the likely fluctuations in water depth, the researchers assume the tracks were formed over several days, maybe even weeks.

Previous research had identified two types of small dinosaur tracks at Lark Quarry: long-toed tracks (called Skartopus) and short-toed tracks (called Wintonopus).

The UQ scientists found that just like you 'shouldn't judge a book by its cover', you also 'shouldn't judge a track by its outline'.

"3D profiles of 'Skartopus' tracks reveal that they were made by a short-toed trackmaker dragging its toes through the sediment, thereby elongating the tracks," explained Romilio.

"In this context, they are best interpreted as a just another variant of Wintonopus."

Romilio's supervisor and coauthor of the new paper, Dr Steve Salisbury, added that, "3D analysis of the Lark Quarry tracks has allowed us to greatly refine our understanding of what this site represents.

"It is also allowing us to learn more about how these dinosaurs moved and behaved in different environments," Dr Salisbury said.

For the past 30 years, the tracks at Lark Quarry have be known as the world's only record of a 'dinosaur stampede'.

Previous research by Romilio and Salisbury in 2011 also showed the larger tracks at Lark Quarry were probably made by a herbivorous dinosaur similar to Muttaburrasaurus, and not a large theropod, as had previously been proposed.

"Taken together, these findings strongly suggest Lark Quarry does not represent a 'dinosaur stampede'," Romilio said.

"A better analogy for the site is probably a river crossing."

Dr Salisbury said regardless of how it was interpreted, these findings took nothing away from the importance of the site.

"Lark Quarry is, and will always remain, one of Australia's most important dinosaur tracksites," Dr Salisbury said.

The new study was published in the January 2013 issue of Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

More information about dinosaur research at UQ can be found at: http://www.uq.edu.au/dinosaurs/

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Queensland.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

Anthony Romilio, Ryan T. Tucker, Steven W. Salisbury. Reevaluation of the Lark Quarry dinosaur Tracksite (late Albian–Cenomanian Winton Formation, central-western Queensland, Australia): no longer a stampede? Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 2013; 33 (1): 102 DOI: 10.1080/02724634.2012.694591

 

[ramonmercado]

Dinosaurs: Carmarthenshire was Jurassic 'hotspot'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-sout ... s-21023189

Pantydraco lived in the Early Jurassic period in Wales

Carmarthenshire has been highlighted as a dinosaur hotspot in a new map detailing prehistoric finds.

The county has been identified as an area of interest by the Natural History Museum in relation to the remains of a Pantydraco discovered there.

The herbivore - whose name means 'Pant-y-ffynnon dragon' - lived in the Early Jurassic period in Wales.

The map was compiled from information of dinosaur finds over the last 336 years to accompany a TV programme.

Continue reading the main story
“
Start Quote

This was a small plant-eating dinosaur, which would only have been a couple of metres long”

Dr Paul Barrett
Merit Researcher at the Natural History Museum
Dr Paul Barratt, a merit reseacher in the museum's Department of Palaeontology, said: "I was asked to compile a map of dinosaur finds in the UK and most of them are in England but there are some very important ones in other places too, including Wales where we have some very early dinosaur specimens.

"It's an accident of geology that we don't have many rocks in Wales of the right age to preserve dinosaur fossils, but the ones that do gives us some of these very early dinosaurs which we don't find elsewhere."

Dr Barrett said the best known dinosaur from west Wales was the Pantydraco.

"This was a small plant-eating dinosaur, which would only have been a couple of metres long," he said.

"In fact we've mostly had material of an almost baby of this animal, the best preserved one is probably only about two-and-a-half feet long.

"So these are small bi-pedal plant eaters walking around on their hind legs."

There is also evidence of a couple of carnivores living in the same area, although those finds were confined to teeth.

Dr Barrett added that not much time has been spent searching for dinosaur remains in Wales primarily because a lot of the spots where they are found are were "relatively small and the rock is relatively unproductive".

"So whenever we do find something it's a relatively important find", he said.

"But we also have very nice dinosaur footprints in Wales as well which help fill in some of those blanks.

"They can be found on various foreshores in south Wales, so you can actually go out and see these little three-toed tracks in the rock.

"So little meat eating dinosaurs were running around probably about 200-odd million years ago."

Primeval: New World is broadcast on Watch, on Tuesdays at 21:00 GMT.

 

[ramonmercado]

Yet another fossil ruffles the feathers of bird flight theory.

New dinosaur fossil challenges bird evolution theory
January 24th, 2013 in Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

Enlarge

This is a reconstruction of Eosinopteryx. Credit: Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences

(Phys.org)—The discovery of a new bird-like dinosaur from the Jurassic period challenges widely accepted theories on the origin of flight.

Co-authored by Dr Gareth Dyke, Senior Lecturer in Vertebrate Palaeontology at the University of Southampton, the paper describes a new feathered dinosaur about 30 cm in length which pre-dates bird-like dinosaurs that birds were long thought to have evolved from.

Over many years, it has become accepted among palaeontologists that birds evolved from a group of dinosaurs called theropods from the Early Cretaceous period of Earth's history, around 120-130 million years ago. Recent discoveries of feathered dinosaurs from the older Middle-Late Jurassic period have reinforced this theory.

The new 'bird-dinosaur' Eosinopteryx described in Nature Communications this week provides additional evidence to this effect.

"This discovery sheds further doubt on the theory that the famous fossil Archaeopteryx – or "first bird" as it is sometimes referred to – was pivotal in the evolution of modern birds," says Dr Dyke, who is based at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton.

"Our findings suggest that the origin of flight was much more complex than previously thought."

The fossilised remains found in north-eastern China indicate that, while feathered, this was a flightless dinosaur, because of its small wingspan and a bone structure that would have restricted its ability to flap its wings.

The dinosaur also had toes suited to walking along the ground and fewer feathers on its tail and lower legs, which would have made it easier to run.

More information: www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v4/n1/ful ... s2389.html

Provided by University of Southampton

"New dinosaur fossil challenges bird evolution theory." January 24th, 2013. http://phys.org/news/2013-01-dinosaur-f ... heory.html

 

[Kondoru]

Im getting very suspicious about these Dinos....

 

[ramonmercado]

Im getting very suspicious about these Dinos....

Yeah, when I were a lad we had real dinosaurs, none of these feathered freaks.

 

[ramonmercado]

More Small Meat-Eating Dinosaurs Than Thought
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 195356.htm

Summary of quantitative morphotypes showing their stratigraphic ages. (Credit: Derek W. Larson, Philip J. Currie. Multivariate Analyses of Small Theropod Dinosaur Teeth and Implications for Paleoecological Turnover through Time. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (1): e54329 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0054329)

Jan. 23, 2013 — University of Alberta researchers used fossilized teeth to identify at least 23 species of small meat-eating dinosaurs that roamed western Canada and the United States, 85 to 65 million years ago.

Until now, only seven species of small two-legged meat-eating dinosaurs from the North American west had been identified.

U of A palaeontologist Philip Currie and student Derek Larson examined a massive dataset of fossil teeth that included samples from members of the families to which Velociraptor and Troodon (possibly the brainiest dinosaur) belong.

"Small meat-eating dinosaur skeletons are exceedingly rare in many parts of the world and, if not for their teeth, would be almost completely unknown," said Larson.

The researchers say the huge increase in the number of small meat-eating species to 23, shows that instead of a few species existing for many millions of years, there were actually many small meat-eating species, each existing for shorter periods of time.

"We can identify what meat-eaters lived in what geographic area or geologic age," explained Currie. "And we can do this by identifying just their teeth, which are far more common than skeletons."

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Alberta, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

 

[ramonmercado]

Dinosaur Footprints Lifted from NASA's Backyard
Megan Gannon, LiveScience News EditorDate: 04 February 2013 Time: 01:30
http://www.space.com/19622-dinosaur-foo ... ddard.html

The 12-inch-wide footprint belonged to an armored, tank-like plant-eater.
CREDIT: NASA/GSFC/Rebecca Roth

A chunk of stone bearing dinosaur footprints has been carefully lifted from the grounds of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., scientists report.

The dino tracks, thought to have been left by three separate beasts more than 100 million years ago, were discovered by amateur paleontologist Ray Stanford in August 2012.

The feature that first caught Stanford's eye was a dinner-plate-sized footprint of a nodosaur, a tanklike dinosaur studded with bony protuberances that roamed the area about 110 million years ago during the Cretaceous period (the period from 145 million to 65 million years ago that was the end of the Mesozoic Era). This particular lumbering leaf-eater must have been moving quickly across the prehistoric mud, as its heel did not sink deeply into the ground.

A closer look at the site revealed two more prints. Stephen Godfrey, a paleontology curator at the Calvert Marine Museum, who was contracted to preserve the find, said he suspects one was left by an ornithopod, possibly from the iguanodontid family, which were large vegetarian dinosaurs with birdlike, three-toed feet that walked on its hind legs. Another smaller footprint found superimposed over the nodosaur track is thought to be from a baby nodosaur, perhaps trying to catch up to its parent, according to a statement from NASA. [See Photos of the Dinosaur Footprints at Goddard]

The stretch of ground containing the prints measured about 7 feet long and 3 feet across at its widest point (2 meters by 0.9 meters). After making a silicon-rubber cast of the dino tracks, the team covered the find in plaster-soaked burlap, much like an orthopedic cast, to reinforce the slab and protect it from damage during the big move. Altogether, the stone slab, the protective jacket and surrounding soil weighed about 3,000 pounds (1,360 kilograms), and it was successfully pulled out of the ground last month.

The dinosaur footprints were encased in a field jacket, which is much like a cast that a doctor would place on a broken arm or leg. This field jacket consisted of many layers of burlap soaked in plaster, with metal pipes added to act like splints for additional support.
CREDIT: NASA/GSFC/Rebecca Roth

For now, the prints are being stored at Goddard until further scientific study is possible. The wonder of the discovery has not been lost on space scientists at Goddard, who often find themselves studying starlight as old as the dinosaurs.

"One of the amazing aspects of this find is that some of the starlight now seen in the night sky by astronomers was created in far-distant galaxies when these dinosaurs were walking on mud flats in Cretaceous Maryland where Goddard is now located," Jim Garvin, Goddard's chief scientist, said in a statement. "That starlight (from within the Virgo Supercluster) is only now reaching Earth after having traveled through deep space for 100 million years."

This story was provided by LiveScience, a sister site to SPACE.com. Follow LiveScience on Twitter @livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+.

 

[Analis]

Im getting very suspicious about these Dinos....

Yeah, when I were a lad we had real dinosaurs, none of these feathered freaks.

Well, I like all these proto-birds or primitive avialians/birds. When Jurassic Park was released, I was a bit disappointed that they had been too timorous to show feathered raptors.
On the other hand, I liked the description of the likes of Struthiomimus, Gallimimus and Ornithomimus as looking like ostriches without feathers... :

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 150357.htm

Fossils of First Feathered Dinosaurs from North America Discovered: Clues On Early Wing Uses

Oct. 25, 2012 — The ostrich-like dinosaurs in the original Jurassic Park movie were portrayed as a herd of scaly, fleet-footed animals being chased by a ferocious Tyrannosaurus rex. New research published in the journal Science reveals this depiction of these bird-mimic dinosaurs is not entirely accurate -- the ornithomimids, as they are scientifically known, should have had feathers and wings.

The new study, led by paleontologists Darla Zelenitsky from the University of Calgary and François Therrien from the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, describes the first ornithomimid specimens preserved with feathers, recovered from 75 million-year-old rocks in the badlands of Alberta, Canada.

"This is a really exciting discovery as it represents the first feathered dinosaur specimens found in the Western Hemisphere," says Zelenitsky, assistant professor at the University of Calgary and lead author of the study. "Furthermore, despite the many ornithomimid skeletons known, these specimens are also the first to reveal that ornithomimids were covered in feathers, like several other groups of theropod dinosaurs."

The researchers found evidence of feathers preserved with a juvenile and two adults skeletons of Ornithomimus, a dinosaur that belongs to the group known as ornithomimids. This discovery suggests that all ornithomimid dinosaurs would have had feathers.

The specimens reveal an interesting pattern of change in feathery plumage during the life of Ornithomimus. "This dinosaur was covered in down-like feathers throughout life, but only older individuals developed larger feathers on the arms, forming wing-like structures," says Zelenitsky. "This pattern differs from that seen in birds, where the wings generally develop very young, soon after hatching."

This discovery of early wings in dinosaurs too big to fly indicates the initial use of these structures was not for flight.

"The fact that wing-like forelimbs developed in more mature individuals suggests they were used only later in life, perhaps associated with reproductive behaviors like display or egg brooding," says Therrien, curator at the Royal Tyrrell Museum and co-author of the study.

Until now feathered dinosaur skeletons had been recovered almost exclusively from fine-grained rocks in China and Germany. "It was previously thought that feathered dinosaurs could only fossilize in muddy sediment deposited in quiet waters, such as the bottom of lakes and lagoons," says Therrien. "But the discovery of these ornithomimids in sandstone shows that feathered dinosaurs can also be preserved in rocks deposited by ancient flowing rivers."

Because sandstone is the type of rock that most commonly preserves dinosaur skeletons, the Canadian discoveries reveal great new potential for the recovery of feathered dinosaurs worldwide.
The fossils will be on display this fall at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta.

Interesting, because the article seems to describe the presence of waned feathers on their arms. Which would make of ornithomimids the most remote relative of birds with waned feathers known until now.

 

[ramonmercado]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130228171504.htm
New Dinosaur Species: First Fossil Evidence Shows Small Crocs Fed On Baby Dinosaurs

Clint Boyd, Ph.D., of the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, points to a crocodyliform tooth embedded in the femur of a young dinosaur. (Credit: South Dakota School of Mines & Technology)

Feb. 28, 2013 — A South Dakota School of Mines & Technology assistant professor and his team have discovered a new species of herbivorous dinosaur and today published the first fossil evidence of prehistoric crocodyliforms feeding on small dinosaurs.

Research by Clint Boyd, Ph.D., provides the first definitive evidence that plant-eating baby ornithopod dinosaurs were a food of choice for the crocodyliform, a now extinct relative of the crocodile family. While conducting their research, the team also discovered that this dinosaur prey was a previously unrecognized species of a small ornithopod dinosaur, which has yet to be named.

The evidence found in what is now known as the Grand Staircase Escalante-National Monument in southern Utah dates back to the late Cretaceous period, toward the end of the age of dinosaurs, and was published today in the online journal PLOS ONE. The complete research findings of Boyd and Stephanie K. Drumheller, of the University of Iowa and the University of Tennessee, and Terry A. Gates, of North Carolina State University and the Natural History Museum of Utah, can be accessed online (see journal reference below).

A large number of mostly tiny bits of dinosaur bones were recovered in groups at four locations within the Utah park -- which paleontologists and geologists know as the Upper Cretaceous (Campanian) Kaiparowits Formation -- leading paleontologists to believe that crocodyliforms had fed on baby dinosaurs 1-2 meters in total length.

Evidence shows bite marks on bone joints, as well as breakthrough proof of a crocodyliform tooth still embedded in a dinosaur femur.

The findings are significant because historically dinosaurs have been depicted as the dominant species. "The traditional ideas you see in popular literature are that when little baby dinosaurs are either coming out of a nesting grounds or out somewhere on their own, they are normally having to worry about the theropod dinosaurs, the things like raptors or, on bigger scales, the T. rex. So this kind of adds a new dimension," Boyd said. "You had your dominant riverine carnivores, the crocodyliforms, attacking these herbivores as well, so they kind of had it coming from all sides."

Based on teeth marks left on bones and the large amounts of fragments left behind, it is believed the crocodyliforms were also diminutive in size, perhaps no more than 2 meters long. A larger species of crocodyliform would have been more likely to gulp down its prey without leaving behind traces of "busted up" bone fragments.

Until now, paleontologists had direct evidence only of "very large crocodyliforms" interacting with "very large dinosaurs."

"It's not often that you get events from the fossil record that are action-related," Boyd explained. "While you generally assume there was probably a lot more interaction going on, we didn't have any of that preserved in the fossil record yet. This is the first time that we have definitive evidence that you had this kind of partitioning, of your smaller crocodyliforms attacking the smaller herbivorous dinosaurs," he said, adding that this is only the second published instance of a crocodyliform tooth embedded in any prey animal in the fossil record.

"A lot of times you find material in close association or you can find some feeding marks or traces on the outside of the bone and you can hypothesize that maybe it was a certain animal doing this, but this was only the second time we have really good definitive evidence of a crocodyliform feeding on a prey animal and in this case an ornithischian dinosaur," Boyd said.

The high concentrations of tiny dinosaur bones led researchers to conclude a type of selection occurred, that crocodyliforms were preferentially feeding on these miniature dinosaurs. "Maybe it was closer to a nesting ground where baby dinosaurs would have been more abundant, and so the smaller crocodyliforms were hanging out there getting a lunch," Boyd added.

"When we started looking at all the other bones, we starting finding marks that are known to be diagnostic for crocodyliform feeding traces, so all that evidence coming together suddenly started to make sense as to why we were not finding good complete specimens of these little ornithischian dinosaurs," Boyd explained. "Most of the bites marks are concentrated around the joints, which is where the crocodyliform would tend to bite, and then, when they do their pulling or the death roll that they tend to do, the ends of the bones tend to snap off more often than not in those actions. That's why we were finding these fragmentary bones."

In the process of their research, the team discovered through diagnostic cranial material that these baby prey are a new, as yet-to-be-named dinosaur species. Details on this new species will soon be published in another paper.

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

Clint A. Boyd, Stephanie K. Drumheller, Terry A. Gates. Crocodyliform Feeding Traces on Juvenile Ornithischian Dinosaurs from the Upper Cretaceous (Campanian) Kaiparowits Formation, Utah. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (2): e57605 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0057605

 

[ramonmercado]

Crow-Size Pterosaur Named After 9-Year-Old Fossil Hunter
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... gn=Content
Newfound flying reptile is named after nine-year-old Daisy Morris.

Illustration of the new species of pterosaur—Vectidraco daisymorrisae.

Illustration courtesy University of Southampton

Daisy Morris. Photograph courtesy University of Southampton
Ker Than
for National Geographic News
Published March 21, 2013

A new species of crow-size pterosaur has been named in honor of the nine-year-old fossil hunter who discovered it, a new study says.

The new species of pterosaur—a type of flying reptile that lived alongside the dinosaurs—was dubbed Vectidraco daisymorrisae after U.K. youngster Daisy Morris.

While exploring the U.K.'s Isle of Wight (map) in 2008, the then-five-year-old Morris came across blackened "bones sticking out of the sand," according to the BBC. (Vectidraco means "dragon from the Isle of Wight" in Latin.)

The Morris family brought the fossil to paleontologist Martin Simpson at the University of Southampton, who, with the help of colleagues, identified it as a new species. (Also see "New Giant Flying Reptile Found; Hunted on Foot?")

"In pterosaurs, certain parts of the skeleton, especially the skull and the pelvis, are really distinct between different [species]," explained Andrew Farke, a paleontologist at the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology in Claremont, California, and editor of the new study in PLoS ONE.

The newfound creature also belonged to a group of pterosaurs called the azhdarchoids, which, "in my opinion, are among the most interesting of pterosaurs," study co-author Darren Naish, also of Southampton University, said in a statement.

"All are from the Cretaceous, all are toothless, and many—perhaps all—were especially well adapted for life in terrestrial environments like woodlands, tropical forests, and floodplains," he said. (Related: "Pterosaur 'Runway' Found; Shows Birdlike Landing Style.")

New Pterosaur Was Expert Flyer

From the size of the pelvis, Simpson and his team estimate V. daisymorrisae had a wingspan of about 2.5 feet (75 centimeters) and was just over a foot (35 centimeters) from snout to tail, making it about the size of a gull or large crow.

V. daisymorrisae was a diminutive cousin of Quetzalcoatlus, which had a wingspan of more than 30 feet (10 meters) and was one of the largest flying creatures to have ever lived. (Watch a video of the "flying monster" Quetzalcoatlus.)

The England that V. daisymorrisae lived in 145 to 65 million years ago was also very different than today. It "was presumably quite a bit warmer then," Farke said, "and filled with lush vegetation."

If the new pterosaur was anything like its relatives, it probably had a head crest, was a reasonably good walker and runner on the ground, and could expertly fly through dense forests.

Daisy and the Dragon

More than a new species came out of Morris's fossil-collecting adventure: She also inspired study co-author Simpson to write a children's book entitled Daisy and the Isle of Wight Dragon. (Take National Geographic's dinosaur quiz.)

"The story highlights the special relationship between amateurs, academics, and curators, in bringing these important finds to the attention of the scientific world," Simpson said in a statement.

"It also shows that, continuing a long tradition in paleontology, major discoveries can be made by amateurs—often by being in the right place at the right time."

 

[ramonmercado]

Dinosaur 'fills fossil record gap'
By Helen Briggs
BBC News
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22210435

The discovery site of the animal

Dinosaur fossils unearthed in Madagascar are of a new species that roamed the Earth about 90 million years ago, say US researchers.

The remains date back to a time when India and Madagascar were one landmass cut off from the rest of the world.

Revealing the discovery in the journal PLOS ONE, scientists say the dinosaur was a bi-pedal meat-eater about the size of a large cow.

It has been named Dahalokely tokana, which means "lonely small bandit".

Madagascar is a treasure trove for palaeontologists, yielding thousands of well-preserved fossils.

Continue reading the main story
“
Start Quote

This just reinforces the importance of exploring new areas around the world where undiscovered dinosaur species are still waiting”

Joe Sertich
Denver Museum of Nature and Science
But the latest discovery is the first new dinosaur species unearthed on the island in almost a decade.

Its Malagasy name refers to its carnivorous diet and isolation on a landmass in the middle of the ocean.

The discovery fills a gap in the fossil record and raises intriguing questions about the evolution of animals on both Madagascar and India, which separated at about the time this newly identified creature walked the Earth.

Andrew Farke of the Raymond M Alf Museum of Paleontology in Claremont, California, says it belongs to a group called the Abelisauridae, which were common to the southern continents.

He told BBC News: "The most intriguing thing for me is that it fills a major gap in what we know about the history of dinosaurs in Madagascar.

"It shortens it by about 20 million years. It would have been a meat-eater, walking on two legs about the size of a large cow, with a tail."

Joe Sertich, curator of dinosaurs at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, who discovered the dinosaur, said it was closely related to well-known dinosaurs from southern continents.

"This just reinforces the importance of exploring new areas around the world where undiscovered dinosaur species are still waiting."