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Dinosaurs: New Findings & Theories

This falls fowl of previous theories.

Dinosaurs that lived around 200 million years ago may have moved in a way similar to guineafowls, despite having long and muscular tails, scientists believe.

Their research is based on an analysis of fossilised footprints of theropods, or three-toed dinosaurs, from the Early Jurassic period alongside the foot impressions of helmeted guineafowls. The scientists believe their findings, published in the journal Biology Letters, offers a new way of studying ancient footprints.

Study author Dr Peter Falkingham, senior lecturer in vertebrate biology at Liverpool John Moores University, said: “Dinosaurs were moving in very similar ways to modern birds even 200 million years ago, many millions of years before birds evolved, even though they were quite different (long, muscular tails).”

https://www.irishexaminer.com/break...may-have-walked-like-guineafowls-1008511.html
 
Micro-Dinos.

Dinosaurs are often thought of as giant creatures, but new research adds to evidence they started out small.

The evidence comes from a newly described fossil relative found on Madagascar that lived some 237 million years ago and stood just 10cm tall. The specimen may also help clarify the currently murky origins of pterosaurs, the winged reptiles that ruled the skies at the time of the dinosaurs. The work appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"There's a general perception of dinosaurs as being giants," said co-author Christian Kammerer, from the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.n"But this new animal is very close to the divergence of dinosaurs and pterosaurs, and it's shockingly small."

The specimen, named Kongonaphon kely, or "tiny bug slayer", was found in 1998 in Madagascar by a team of palaeontologists, led by John Flynn from the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Dinosaurs and pterosaurs both belong to the group Ornithodira. Their origins, however, are poorly known, as few specimens from near the root of this lineage have been found.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-53319635
 
Maybe not a dino after all.

The journal Nature has issued a retraction for a paper it published March 11th called "Hummingbird-sized dinosaur from the Cretaceous period of Myanmar."

The editorial staff was alerted to a possible misclassification of the fossil embedded in amber, and after review, agreed with the assessment and issued the retraction.

When the paper was published, many mainstream publications were intrigued by the story and wrote about the findings, giving the team from China, the U.S. and Canada a bit of notoriety. But shortly thereafter, others in the field began questioning the categorization of the fossil—many suggested it appeared to be a lizard, which is a different group of reptiles from the dinosaurs.

The specimen in question is a very small skull embedded in amber, believed to be approximately 100 million years old—dating it to the time of the dinosaurs. The researchers described the specimen as a bird-like skull less than two centimeters in length—approximately the size of a hummingbird skull. And its mouth was filled with teeth.

https://phys.org/news/2020-07-paper-hummingbird-sized-dinosaur-retracted.html
 
T-Rex cousin on Isle of Wight

Bones of close relative of Tyrannosaurus rex discovered on Isle of Wight

Palaeontologists estimate the dinosaur - which is a new species of theropod - would have been up to four metres long.


Wednesday 12 August 2020 02:18, UK

Four bones found on the Isle of Wight belong to a new species of dinosaur from the same family as Tyrannosaurus rex.

Palaeontologists from the University of Southampton say the creature lived in the Cretaceous period 115 million years ago and is estimated to have been up to four metres long.

The dinosaur - which is a new species of theropod, the group that includes Tyrannosaurus rex and modern-day birds - has been named Vectaerovenator inopinatus. ...

https://news.sky.com/story/bones-of...urus-rex-discovered-on-isle-of-wight-12047501
 
Some Dinosaurs Could Fly Before They Were Birds

August 12, 2020
www.heritagedaily.com

New research using the most comprehensive study of feathered dinosaurs and early birds has revised the evolutionary relationships of dinosaurs at the origin of birds.

An international team of researchers, led by Professors Michael Pittman and Rui Pei, at Hong Kong University, from five different countries, including McGill University Professor Hans Larsson published their findings in the journal Current Biology. The team pored over fossils, developed a novel analytical pipeline to search for evolutionary trees, and estimated how each species may have crossed the stringent thresholds for powered flight.

“Our revised evolutionary tree supports the traditional relationship of dromaeosaurid (‘raptors’) and troodontid theropods as the closest relatives of birds. It also supports the status of the controversial anchiornithine theropods as the earliest birds”, said Pei. With this improved evolutionary tree, the team reconstructed the potential of bird-like theropods for powered flight, using proxies borrowed from the study flight in living birds.

The team found that the potential for powered flight evolved at least three times in theropods: once in birds and twice in dromaeosaurids. “The capability for gliding flight in some dromaeosaurids is well established so us finding at least two origins of powered flight potential among dromaeosaurids is really exciting,” said Pittman.

[...]

https://www.heritagedaily.com/2020/08/some-dinosaurs-could-fly-before-they-were-birds/134711
 
Grand Canyon cliff collapse reveals 313 million year old fossilized tracks

Some 313 million years ago, two animals crossed a sand dune in what would become the Grand Canyon — and now, paleontologists say that chance crossing has been preserved as the national park’s oldest fossilized vertebrate tracks.

11410058_web1_Manakacha-trackway-March-2018-46-2.jpg


The tracks had surfaced after a cliff collapse, and were first discovered in 2016 by Norwegian geologist Allan Krill — a visiting professor at the University of Nevada who was hiking with his students at the time.

The two animals crossed the same dune hours or even days apart, the journal noted.

Scientists noticed that both used a distinctive “lateral-sequence” walk, meaning their front and rear legs on one side moved before the front and rear legs on their other side moved.

“Living species of tetrapods, dogs and cats, for example, routinely use a lateral-sequence gait when they walk slowly,” Rowland explained.

“The Bright Angel Trail tracks document the use of this gait very early in the history of vertebrate animals. We previously had no information about that.”

https://apple.news/AZj4MH33mSwO-JNSM_UXMSg

maximus otter
 
Not sure about using this tread but I couldn't find a tread for pre-dinosaurs findings? ...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
125M-year-old dinosaur trapped by a volcanic eruption found in China

Fox News
19 September, 2020

Researchers have discovered 125-million-year-old dinosaur fossils that are perfectly preserved and suggest the creatures were trapped by a volcanic eruption.

The study, published in the scientific journal PeerJ, notes the species were discovered in the western Liaoning Province in China and have been named Changmiania liaoningensis, which means "eternal sleeper from Liaoning" in Chinese.

"These animals were quickly covered by fine sediment while they were still alive or just after their death," said the study's co-author and paleontologist Pascal Godefroit, in a statement.

C. liaoningensis was small compared to its larger herbivore brethren, such as the titanosaur. It was approximately 4-feet long and had "very powerful hind legs" to go with a long tail, which suggests the ancient ornithopod was a strong and fast runner and walked upright.

[...]

https://www.foxnews.com/science/125m-year-old-dinosaur-trapped-volcanic-eruption-china.amp
 
Is it just me, or is the tendency over the last few years for artists to whack feathers all over depictions of dinosaurs, with no fossil evidence of feathers for that particular species, a bit shit? (To put it bluntly).

Newly published research questions whether pterosaurs (portrayed as feathered since the 19th century) had feathers at all. If these researchers are right, it means that the evolutionary development of feathers began far earlier than is commonly believed.
Naked Prehistoric Monsters! Pterosaurs, Ancient Flying Reptiles, May Not Have Had Feathers at All

The debate about when dinosaurs developed feathers has taken a new turn with a paper refuting earlier claims that feathers were also found on dinosaurs’ relatives, the flying reptiles called pterosaurs.

Pterosaur expert Dr. David Unwin from the University of Leicester’s Centre for Palaeobiology Research, and Professor David Martill, of the University of Portsmouth have examined the evidence that these creatures had feathers and believe they were in fact bald.

They have responded to a suggestion by a group of his colleagues led by Zixiao Yang that some pterosaur fossils show evidence of feather-like branching filaments, ‘protofeathers’, on the animal’s skin. ...

Dr. Yang, from Nanjing University, and colleagues presented their argument in a 2018 paper in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution. Now Unwin and Martill, have offered an alternative, non-feather explanation for the fossil evidence in the same journal.

While this may seem like academic minutiae, it actually has huge palaeontological implications. Feathered pterosaurs would mean that the very earliest feathers first appeared on an ancestor shared by both pterosaurs and dinosaurs, since it is unlikely that something so complex developed separately in two different groups of animals.

This would mean that the very first feather-like elements evolved at least 80 million years earlier than currently thought. It would also suggest that all dinosaurs started out with feathers, or protofeathers but some groups, such as sauropods, subsequently lost them again – the complete opposite of currently accepted theory.

The evidence rests on tiny, hair-like filaments, less than one-tenth of a millimeter in diameter, which have been identified in about 30 pterosaur fossils. Among these, Yang and colleagues were only able to find just three specimens on which these filaments seem to exhibit a ‘branching structure’ typical of protofeathers. ...

Unwin and Martill propose that these are not protofeathers at all but tough fibers which form part of the internal structure of the pterosaur’s wing membrane, and that the ‘branching’ effect may simply be the result of these fibers decaying and unraveling.

Dr. Unwin said: “The idea of feathered pterosaurs goes back to the nineteenth century but the fossil evidence was then, and still is, very weak. Exceptional claims require exceptional evidence – we have the former, but not the latter.”

FULL STORY: https://scitechdaily.com/naked-preh...ng-reptiles-may-not-have-had-feathers-at-all/
 
Toothless dinosaur with just two fingers discovered

BBC Scotland News
7 October, 2020

Researchers from the University of Edinburgh found multiple skeletons of the species, named Oksoko avarsan.

The feathered creature, which dates from about one hundred million years ago, also had a large, toothless beak.

The team said the discovery could help explain how animals lose fingers and toes through evolution.

They said the species had one fewer finger on each forearm compared with its close relatives, suggesting an adaptability that enabled the animals to spread during the Late Cretaceous Period.

Several complete skeletons of the feathered, omnivorous creatures were unearthed.

The animals, which grew to two metres long, had a large, toothless beak similar to the type seen in parrots.

It is the first evidence of digit loss in the three-fingered family of dinosaurs, known as oviraptors.

The team said the discovery that the dinosaurs could evolve forelimb adaptations suggested they could alter their diets and lifestyles, and potentially diversify and multiply.

The team also discovered that Oksoko avarsan, like many other prehistoric species, were social as juveniles.

The fossil remains of four young dinosaurs were preserved resting together.

[...]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-54448253
 
Toothless dinosaur with just two fingers discovered

BBC Scotland News
7 October, 2020

Researchers from the University of Edinburgh found multiple skeletons of the species, named Oksoko avarsan.

The feathered creature, which dates from about one hundred million years ago, also had a large, toothless beak.

The team said the discovery could help explain how animals lose fingers and toes through evolution.

They said the species had one fewer finger on each forearm compared with its close relatives, suggesting an adaptability that enabled the animals to spread during the Late Cretaceous Period.

Several complete skeletons of the feathered, omnivorous creatures were unearthed.

The animals, which grew to two metres long, had a large, toothless beak similar to the type seen in parrots.

It is the first evidence of digit loss in the three-fingered family of dinosaurs, known as oviraptors.

The team said the discovery that the dinosaurs could evolve forelimb adaptations suggested they could alter their diets and lifestyles, and potentially diversify and multiply.

The team also discovered that Oksoko avarsan, like many other prehistoric species, were social as juveniles.

The fossil remains of four young dinosaurs were preserved resting together.

[...]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-54448253
Certainly a strange looking animal.
 
Certainly a strange looking animal.
I thought this was interesting, quoting the article:

"The team also discovered that Oksoko avarsan, like many other prehistoric species, were social as juveniles.
The fossil remains of four young dinosaurs were preserved resting together".

If I ever finish this time machine, I'll give you a shout. :)
 
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Reactions: Jim
A good find.

A 12-year-old boy made the discovery of his lifetime when he found a dinosaur skeleton dating back 69 million years.

The amateur palaeontologist was out hiking with his father in a fossil-rich part of Alberta, Canada this July, when he saw bones protruding from a rock. On Thursday, the skeleton's excavation was completed.

The boy, Nathan Hrushkin, says when he first laid eyes on the bones, he was "literally speechless".

"I wasn't even excited, even though I know I should have [been]," he tells the BBC. "I was in so much shock that I had actually found a dinosaur discovery."

Nathan, who has been interested in dinosaurs since he was six, often goes hiking in the Nature Conservancy of Canada's protected site in the Albertan Badlands with his father.

"I've always just been so fascinated with how their bones grow from bones like ours to solid rock." ...

https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-54547987
 
I thought this was interesting, quoting the article:

"The team also discovered that Oksoko avarsan, like many other prehistoric species, were social as juveniles.
The fossil remains of four young dinosaurs were preserved resting together".

If I ever finish this time machine, I'll give you a shout. :)
Let us know last week please.
 
Over the last few decades there's been something of a competition in which palaeontologists have raced to discover, name, analyze and announce the biggest dinosaur (sauropod) that ever lived. The resulting claims have been based on varying amounts of evidence, analytical methods and / or degrees of defensible credibility. Researchers are now admitting they've gotten carried away, and they're attempting to develop a more reasonable assessment of how big the biggest terrestrial dinosaurs really were.
Why the World’s Biggest Dinosaurs Keep Getting Cut Down to Size

Debate erupts over how best to estimate the sizes of the largest creatures ever to have walked the earth

On August 9, 2017, paleontologists at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City unveiled the largest animal ever to walk the earth. Dubbed Patagotitan mayorum, the ... dinosaur’s long neck, bulging body and long tail stretched about 120 feet long, with the living animal estimated to weigh in at more than 70 tons. But now it’s shrunk.

... The shrinkage comes as part of a long history of supersized dinosaurs that have been downsized after their initial discovery. Incomplete fossils, evolving techniques, and the paleontological preoccupation with enormous dinosaurs have all played into the constant quest to find the biggest creature to walk the planet.

... The “great-dinosaur renaissance” that lasted from the 1970s through the 1990s saw a new bone rush that uncovered several ever larger dinosaurs. Each was given a name befitting its stature, with “Ultrasaurus,” “Supersaurus,” “Seismosaurus,” and more all making news and documentary appearances as the biggest of the big. Yet the initial announcements from the field didn’t hold up once the fossils were brought back to the lab for study. In fact, some of the supposed giants—such as Ultrasaurus—turned out to be misidentified representatives of other species and not quite so exceptional as originally thought.

And then there are the lost giants. Part of a backbone described by fossil hunter E. D. Cope in the 19th century seemed to suggest a sauropod, known as Amphicoelias, that measured almost twice as long as any other. The problem is that the bone was mysteriously lost, and no other example has turned up over more than a century of fossil expeditions. Likewise a dinosaur from India named Bruhathkayosaurus was rumored to be the largest, but those fossils disintegrated and are no longer available to study. ...

Even among the giants that paleontologists have in hand, determining the winner is challenging. Part of the problem is that many of the largest dinosaur skeletons are incomplete. ... A huge amount of sediment was needed to bury the bodies, which were often ravaged by scavengers before burial. Add different analytic methodologies to the mix, and experts often have to revise their expectations. ...

... Experts continue to compare and refine techniques, and one study published earlier this year found that different techniques are finding similar results. Over time, estimations of dinosaur size are becoming more refined and falling into accord with each other. ...

FULL STORY: https://www.scientificamerican.com/...gest-dinosaurs-keep-getting-cut-down-to-size/
 
Chinese scientists have discovered a new dinosaur species which appears to have been equipped – like Batman – with a cape that may have given it the ability to glide. ...

New modeling suggests that both Ambopteryx and its close relative Yi (the two known bat-winged dinosaurs) were clumsy gliders at best and represent a dead end in the evolution of flying reptiles.
Bat-winged dinosaurs were clumsy fliers

Yi and Ambopteryx were a dead end on the evolutionary road to bird flight

Only two dinosaur species are known to have had wings made out of stretched skin, like bats. But unlike bats, these dinos were capable of only limited gliding between trees, a new anatomical analysis suggests. That bat-winged gliding turned out to be a dead end along the path to the evolution of flight, researchers say.

“They are a failed experiment,” says Alexander Dececchi, a paleontologist at Mount Marty University in Sioux Falls, S.D.

Fliers with feathered wings, rather than membranous wings, begin to appear in the fossil record just a few million years after the bat-winged dinosaurs. Those feathered fliers may have outcompeted the gliders in their evolutionary niche, Dececchi and colleagues suggest October 22 in iScience.

Yi qi and Ambopteryx longibrachium were crow-sized dinosaurs that lived about 160 million years ago (SN: 4/29/15). They were distant cousins, both belonging to a bizarre group of dinosaurs known as scansoriopterygids. Unlike other scansoriopterygids, however, these two species sported large wings with membranes, thin skin stretched between elongated arm bones.

The new analyses confirm that these two dinosaurs had vastly different wing structures from the feathered-wing fliers — proving that these two flight strategies evolved independently of one another. Yi and Ambopteryx, for example, had elongated forelimb bones between their membranous wings, as well as a special wrist bone to help support the membrane. The skeletons of the wings of birds, on the other hand, consist of elongated metacarpals, similar to finger bones.

This evolutionary branching out was ultimately a failure, Dececchi says. Yi and Ambopteryx were capable only of gliding short distances from tree to tree, the team found. Their body mass-to-wing ratio was a bit too high for them to stay aloft to glide longer distances. ...

FULL STORY:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/dinosaurs-bat-wings-clumsy-evolution-flying-gliding
 
Discovery of hadrosaur fossils in Africa raises the mystery of how they got to Africa's ancestral supercontinent (Godwana) from the long-separate supercontinent where they first evolved (Laurasia). The best explanation to date is that they somehow managed to cruss the ocean.
The Fossil of a Duckbill Dinosaur Has Been Found on The 'Wrong' Continent

The final chapter of dinosaur history is a tale stretching across two very different worlds, each a vast supercontinent dominated by its own unique mix of predators and herbivores.

Fossilised remains of a plant eater common to one of the two major land masses have been unexpectedly unearthed in rocks belonging to the other, prompting palaeontologists to ask just how it managed to make such a leap.

"It was completely out of place, like finding a kangaroo in Scotland," says University of Bath palaeontologist Nicholas Longrich, who led a study on the recent discovery.

This out-of-place 'kangaroo' was in fact a newly categorised type of crested duckbilled browser known as a hadrosaurid (of a lambeosaurine variety to be precise).

"These dinosaurs evolved long after continental drift split the continents, and we have no evidence of land bridges. The geology tells us Africa was isolated by oceans. If so, the only way to get there is by water." ...

The idea isn't as far-fetched as it might first seem. Hadrosaurs seem quite at home near aquatic environments and come in all shapes and sizes. Some have measured up to 15 metres (45 feet) in length, with large tails and powerful legs capable of making them competent swimmers. ...

"As far as I know, we're the first to suggest ocean crossings for dinosaurs," says Longrich.

FULL STORY (With Illustrative Map):
https://www.sciencealert.com/pony-s...found-in-the-last-place-anybody-would-suspect
 
Fossil amphibian hints at earliest evidence of 'slingshot' tongue



Albanerpetontids, originating possibly 250m years ago, snatched prey with ballistic tongue, say scientists
Scientists have uncovered the oldest evidence of a “slingshot” tongue, in fossils of 99m-year-old amphibians.


The prehistoric armoured creatures, known as albanerpetontids, were sit-and-wait predators who snatched prey with a projectile firing of their “ballistic tongues”.


Although they had lizard-like claws, scales and tails, analysis indicates that albanerpetontids were amphibians and not reptiles, the team said.

(c) The Guardian '20
 
You needed a long (and hard) neck in those days.

Long-necked sauropods, the largest animals ever to walk on Earth, may have thundered into dominance during the Jurassic Period thanks to a large burst of volcanic activity that began around 184 million years ago, a new study suggests.

The resulting environmental crisis may have caused a shift in plant life that gave the tough-toothed, big-gutted herbivores a powerful advantage over other herbivores.

The find comes from the discovery of a new fossil of one of the earliest “true” sauropods in Argentinian Patagonia. Sediments bearing the newly described dinosaur, dubbed Bagualia alba, are precisely dated to 179 million years ago, paleontologist Diego Pol of the Paleontological Museum Egidio Feruglio in Trelew, Argentina, and colleagues report November 18 in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

B. alba, the researchers found, had the telltale characteristics of true sauropods: large, column-like legs; massive size; long necks relative to the body; broad and strong jaws; and large, spoon-shaped teeth with thick enamel. Also known as eusauropods, this lineage came to dominate the Middle and Late Jurassic roughly 174 million to 145 million years ago (SN: 7/10/18), giving rise to awe-inspiring giants such as Argentinosaurus and Dreadnoughtus schrani (SN: 6/9/15). ...

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/long-necked-dinosaurs-sauropod-jurassic-herbivores
 
World’s first 100% complete T-rex skeleton found locked in battle with a Triceratops

Entombed in sediment in Montana, they were discovered by professional fossil hunters – a cattle rancher cowboy and two pals.

Each of the 67-million-year-old remains are among the best ever found and have only been seen by a select few people since they were discovered in 2006.

Incredibly, their body outlines, skin impressions, and injuries – including tyrannosaur teeth stuck in the triceratops body – can still be seen.

It took years to extract the 14-tonne skeletons, and arrange their purchase and sale, so it is reported only a few dozen people have seen them so far.

But this week it was announced they had been bought by the Friends of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences for an undisclosed sum.

The dinosaur carcasses have not been studied and remain entombed within sediment from the Montana hillside where they were discovered.

1605876937201.png


1605876937708.png
 
Goodness, that's an impressive find.

(And correct me if I am wrong, but were the sauropods the only family to live the entire length of the age of the dinosaurs?)
 
Antrim dinosaur bones 'belong to different species'

The only dinosaur bones ever found in Ireland have been confirmed to belong to two different species.
The bones were previously discovered on the east coast of County Antrim.
But a new scientific study from the universities of Portsmouth and Queen's in Belfast has confirmed the origins of the bones for the first time.
One is part of the lower leg bone of a carnivore similar to Sarcosaurus; the other is from the upper leg bone of a Scelidosaurus, a four-legged herbivore.
The two fossil bones, confirmed to be from early Jurassic rocks, were discovered in Islandmagee during two separate finds in the late 19th Century and the 1980s.
Originally it was assumed the fossils were from the same animal, but new analysis published in the Proceedings of the Geologists' Association has confirmed they belong to the two different species.
Ireland was underwater for most of the period during which dinosaurs roamed the earth, so there is less chance the remains of land animals would be preserved in rocks dating to that period.
Ulster Museum has announced plans to put the bones on display when it reopens after the current coronavirus restrictions are lifted.
BBC '20.
 
Dino-era bird had the head of a Velociraptor and beak of a toucan

Source: livescience.com
Date: 25 November, 2020

In what may be one of the weirdest animal mash-ups, scientists have found the 68 million-year-old fossilized skull of an early bird with a Velociraptor-like face and a toucan-like beak, a new study finds.

This crow-size bird lived in northwestern Madagascar during the late Cretaceous, when dinosaurs walked the Earth. And its bizarre beaky face made it one of a kind.

"Birds from the Mesozoic [the dinosaur era], or any time for that matter, do not have faces built like this," study co-researcher Patrick O'Connor, professor of anatomy at Ohio University, told Live Science in an email.

Researchers found the bird's partial but "exquisitely preserved" skull in 2010 in a block of muddy sandstone. They didn't CT scan it until 2017, O'Connor said. In that moment, they realized this 3-inch-long (8.5 centimeters) skull — so small it could fit in the palm of your hand — had "a beak never before seen in the Mesozoic," study co-researcher Alan Turner, associate professor of anatomy at Stony Brook University in New York, told Live Science in an email.

[...]

https://www.livescience.com/ancient-bird-toucan-beak-velociraptor-face.html
 
Bristol dinosaur's brain digitally rebuilt by scientists

A dinosaur's brain has been digitally rebuilt revealing what scientists called a "surprising" insight into the creature's agility and eating habits.
Scientists from Bristol University used advanced imaging and 3-D modelling techniques to digitally rebuild the brain of Thecodontosaurus.
They found the creature, better known as the Bristol dinosaur due to it being discovered in the city, may have eaten meat unlike its plant-eating relatives.
It also may have walked on two legs.
Paleontologist Antonio Ballell said: "Our analysis of Thecodontosaurus' brain uncovered many fascinating features, some of which were quite surprising.
"Whereas its later relatives moved around ponderously on all fours, our findings suggest this species may have walked on two legs and been occasionally carnivorous."
Thecodontosaurus lived in the late Triassic age about 205 million years ago and was the size of a large dog.
(C) BBC. '20
 
Cretaceous Dinosaur Had Impressive Mane and Shoulder Ribbons

Source: sci-news.com
Date: 16 December, 2020

A maned theropod dinosaur with elaborate filamentous structures has been identified by a research team led by University of Portsmouth paleontologists.

The newly-discovered dinosaur species lived about 110 million years ago (Aptian stage of the Cretaceous period) in what is now Brazil.

Named Ubirajara jubatus, the ancient animal was chicken-sized with a mane of long fur down its back.

It also had long, flat, stiff shoulder ribbons of keratin, each with a small sharp ridge running along the middle. Its arms were covered in fur-like filaments down to the hands.

“What is especially unusual about the beast is the presence of two very long, probably stiff ribbons on either side of its shoulders that were probably used for display, for mate attraction, inter-male rivalry or to frighten off foe,” said co-author Professor David Martill, a paleontologist in the School of the Environment, Geography and Geosciences at the University of Portsmouth.

“We cannot prove that the specimen is a male, but given the disparity between male and female birds, it appears likely the specimen was a male, and young, too, which is surprising given most complex display abilities are reserved for mature adult males.”

“Given its flamboyance, we can imagine that the dinosaur may have indulged in elaborate dancing to show off its display structures.”

Ubirajara jubatus’ mane is thought to have been controlled by muscles allowing it to be raised, in a similar way a dog raises its hackles or a porcupine raises its spines when threatened.

[...]

http://www.sci-news.com/paleontology/ubirajara-jubatus-09158.html
 
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