)Details.New Bird-Like Dinosaur Unearthed in Wyoming
A new species of carnivorous bird-like dinosaur being named Hesperornithoides miessleri has been discovered by an international team of paleontologists from the United States and the United Kingdom.
The two-meter long femur at the Angeac-Charente site is thought to have belonged to a sauropod, herbivorous dinosaurs with long necks and tails which were widespread in the late Jurassic era, over 140 million years ago.
Abdul Alhazred wrote: ↑Wed Jul 31, 2019 12:32 pmBy definition, there can be no such thing as a bird-like dinosaur.
Dinosaurs are birds.
So they found a bird-like bird. Cool.
http://www.sci-news.com/biology/feather ... 07256.htmlFeathers Arose 80 Million Years before Birds, Scientists Say
According to a new review paper published in the journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution, feathers arose 250-230 million years ago, during the Early Triassic, when life was recovering from the devastating end-Permian mass extinction.
It is shocking to realize that feathers originated long before birds because feathers have generally been regarded as the key innovation that drove the success of the avian fauna.
However, thousands of fossils from China have shown that many non-avian dinosaurs also had feathers, including feather types not found in birds today.
Those discoveries extended the origin of feathers minimally back to 175 million years ago — about 25 million years before the first generally acknowledged bird, Archaeopteryx.
Recent discoveries of feathers in ornithischian dinosaurs hinted that they are a character of dinosaurs as a whole.
Another startling discovery showed that even pterosaurs had four kinds of feather, apparently similar in form with those of dinosaurs, their closest relatives.
“The oldest bird is still Archaeopteryx first found in the Late Jurassic of southern Germany in 1861, although some species from China are a little older,” said University of Bristol’s Professor Mike Benton, lead author of the paper.
“Those fossils all show a diversity of feathers: down feathers over the body and long, vaned feathers on the wings. But, since 1994, paleontologists have been contending with the perturbing discovery, based on hundreds of amazing specimens from China, that many dinosaurs also had feathers.”
The small, feathered "dino-birds" dug up in China's Liaoning fossil beds have proved an endless source of confusion. The latest genus to ruffle the feathers of paleontologists is Anchiornis, a tiny dinosaur (not a bird) with unusually long front arms and feathers on its front limbs, hind limbs, and feet. Despite its similarity to Microraptor--another four-winged dino-bird--Anchiornis is believed to have been a troodont dinosaur, and thus a close relative of the much bigger Troodon. Like other feathered dinosaurs of its kind, Anchiornis may have represented an intermediate stage between dinosaurs and modern birds, though it may also have occupied a side branch of avian evolution destined to die out with the dinosaurs.
Recently, a team of scientists analyzed the fossilized melanosomes (pigment cells) of a specimen of Anchiornis, resulting in what may be the first full-color depiction of an extinct dinosaur. It turns out that this dino-bird had an orange, mohawk-like crest of feathers on its head, alternating white- and black-striped feathers running along the width of its wings, and black and red "freckles" spotting its beaked face. This has provided considerable grist for paleo-illustrators, who now have no excuse for depicting Anchiornis with scaly, reptilian skin!
), but here it goes:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-04/ ... d/11571756A new pterosaur, or prehistoric flying reptile species, has been discovered in outback Queensland
The pterosaur, a prehistoric flying reptile, lived amongst the dinosaurs which roamed the Winton region around 96 million years ago.
The apex aerial predator had a 4-metre wingspan and walked on all four limbs when on land.
Fossilised pterosaur bones were found by grazier Bob Elliot on Belmont Station outside the tiny town in 2017, the first find of a pterosaur from the Winton Formation.
A two-week dig at the site uncovered the most complete specimen of its kind in Australia.
The well-preserved find includes five partial vertebrae, eight limb bones, a large part of the jaw and skull, and 40 full and partial teeth of a previously unknown pterosaur species, with the findings published in Scientific Reports today.
There sure is a lot of speculation in that line drawing but I suppose they know what they're doing.
Rob Lister wrote: ↑Tue Oct 15, 2019 9:45 amThere sure is a lot of speculation in that line drawing but I suppose they know what they're doing.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/10/worl ... index.htmlFarmer discovers new Tyrannosaur species, one of the oldest of its kind ever found
Tyrannosaurus rex, the king of the dinosaurs, has gained a new family member.
The fragments of a fossilized skull belonging to a previously unknown species of tyrannosaur were found in southern Alberta, Canada. And it's all thanks to John De Groot, a farmer and palaeontology enthusiast who found the fossil, according to a release from the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Alberta, where the fossils will be displayed later this year.
This is the first new tyrannosaur found in Canada in 50 years and one of the oldest tyrannosaur species found in North America. And researchers believe that Thanatotheristes degrootorum lived about 2.5 million years before its close relative, Tyrannosaurus rex.
Thanatotheristes degrootorum was stalking what is now North America as a formidable predator 79.5 million years ago. It could reach between 26 and 30 feet in length and weighed more than two tons as an adult. Tyrannosaurus rex could reach about 40 feet in length.
Its name combines Thanatos, the Greek god of death, with theristes, or "one who reaps or harvests." The second part of the name is in honor of De Groot.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/11/scie ... amber.htmlSkull of Smallest Dinosaur Discovered in Amber
Researchers say it is tinier than the smallest living bird, the bee hummingbird, and raises questions about bird evolution.
The piece of amber — about 99 million years old — is smaller than a fingertip, Dr. O’Connor and a team of researchers report on Wednesday in the journal Nature, and suspended inside of it is the skull of the smallest known bird, and, therefore, dinosaur, ever discovered. They called the bird Oculudentavis khaungraae — a name that comes from the Latin words for eye, teeth and bird. The dinosaur’s skull is only 14.25 millimeters, or a little more than half an inch, from its beak to the end of its skull. The animal had bulbous eyes that looked out from the sides of its head, rather than straight ahead like the eyes of an owl or a human.A 99-million-year old piece of amber containing the skull of a bird that measures a little more than half an inch long.
“We were able to show that this skull is even smaller than that of a bee hummingbird, which is the smallest dinosaur of all time — also the smallest bird,” Dr. O’Connor said. “This is a tiny skull, and it’s just preserved absolutely pristinely.”
Bee hummingbirds, which are still alive today and found in Cuba, have braincases — for birds, that means the skull minus the length of the beak — that measure about 8.8 millimeters long, while the braincase of Oculudentavis is about 7.1 millimeters, or just over a quarter of an inch long. Oculudentavis also has more teeth in its mouth than any other known fossil bird, suggesting the bird was a predator that hunted other creatures.
That it sported so many teeth, though, creates confusion about the evolutionary history of dinosaurs and birds.
Most scientists now believe that birds are theropods, dinosaurs of a group that included tyrannosaurus and spinosaurus, but that birds were on their own evolutionary branch from a common ancestor. Paleontologists have long assumed that as birds evolved away from other dinosaurs, having teeth was a trait that was in the process of disappearing altogether. “But this specimen strongly shows that evolution’s really going in all different directions,” Dr. O’Connor said.
A CT scan of the skull of Oculudentavis, which means eye tooth bird.
Summary: New research suggests that the first dinosaurs laid soft-shelled eggs -- a finding that contradicts established thought. The study analyzed the eggs of two vastly different non-avian dinosaurs and found that they resembled those of turtles in their microstructure, composition, and mechanical properties. The research also suggests that hard-shelled eggs evolved at least three times independently in the dinosaur family tree.
"If I turn in a sicko, will I get a reward?"
