Dinosaur news

[thetyrantlizard]

They have published photographs of the holotype spinosaurus bones found early in the 20th century and were destroyed in World War II.

news-info.wustl.edu/tips/page/normal/5981.html



The remains consist mostly of the sail bones.

[Rated 'R' Superstar]

Got this article from UK newspaper "The Sun".

"Fur-some Creature"

This is the fluffy dinosaur hailed as a vital missing link between vicious meat-eating predators and prehistoric vegetarians.
Scientists believe the newly discovered creature had fur-like feathers all over it's body and probably walked on two legs.
New fossils of the Falcarius utahensis show it had adapted to eating a green, leafy diet.
The adults, who lived 135 million years ago, stood just 4.5ft and had four-inch claws.
Scientists once thought the creatures belonged to a family of giant sea turtles.
But they now believe they are descended from Velociraptors, the savage pack hunters made famous in Jurassic Park.



Sorry about the picture quality as I have no scanner.

What a load of crap, huh?

[thetyrantlizard]

The feathered dinosaur propagandists have struck again Almost everything in that article is speculative or simply false.

1. Fluffy?! They don't even have evidence of feathers! The tactic of the paleos now is to place feathers on every two-footed dinosaur. Proof is irrelevant; it is to them a basic assumption.
2. If that is an ancestral therizinosaur, they can't be 'descended' from velociraptors.

Crap is right.

[thetyrantlizard]

They have scientifically described a theropod that is even bigger than giganotosaurus and maybe t-rex. It's called Mapusaurus, and it was probably a pack hunter, which should have enabled it to bring down Argentinosaurus. No complete skeleton has been found, but they say it should be around 41 feet in length.

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060417/ap_on_sc/big_dinosaur

Let's hope Currie doesn't decide to proclaim it a bird and put feathers on it

[thetyrantlizard]

For some unfathomable reason the excavation of some psittacosaur skeletons is regarded as newsworthy by none other than our dear Jack Horner.

www.montana.edu/cpa/news/nwview.php?article=4016

Perhaps he is going to argue that psittacosaurus was a ferocious carnivore that regularly brought down wimpy scavenging tyrannosauruses for dinner

[thetyrantlizard]

Several items of news to report.

1. Coelophysis was NOT a cannibal, as frequently claimed in paleo books. It appears that somebody finally decided to study the bones in the stomach of the coelophysis, and it turns out they were crocodilian. This means that all these years nobody actually bothered to verify the identity of the species that composed the stomach contents. That's paleo science for you
english.people.com.cn/200609/22/eng20060922_305134.html

2. They have discovered a new genus of ichthyosaurs --under a pingpong table. Apparently somebody dug them up 25 years ago and kept the bones under the pingpong table. That's paleo science for you
reports.discoverychannel.ca/servlet/an/discovery/1/20060922/0922_discovery_ichthyosaur/20060922?hub=DiscoveryReport

3. They have discovered two new kinds of ceratopsians. No drawings of how they looked like though.
www.sltrib.com/ci_4374149

4. Archaeopteryx allegedly had flight feathers on its HIND legs, so it had 4 wings. This remains to be seen.
www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2006/09/22/four-wings.html

[Thorondor 33]

Cool stuff, especially the Ichtyosaur.

[thetyrantlizard]

Thor should like this news: they found 28 skeletons of plesiosaurs, pliosaurs, etc. in Norway, including a complete one "as long as a bus, with teeth larger than cucumbers ... in a head that could swallow an adult human whole."

www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/10/05/europe/EU_GEN_Norway_Prehistoric_Reptiles.php

*Relays news to plesiosaurs that they have found their cousins, esp. to the Walking with Dinosaurs Liopleurodon ;D *

[Thorondor 33]

Awesome news!

[thetyrantlizard]

There has a formal announcement of the new ceratopsian found in Utah. It's like a triceratops, only it has 2 nose horns.

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061020/ap_on_sc/dinosaur_find

[thetyrantlizard]

Strictly speaking not a dinosaur, but they've found the largest phorusrhacus skull or "terror crane" in Argentina. Its head was as big as a horse's and it stood 3 meters high. Yes, it can eat you, Thor. ;D

news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/10/061025-terror-birds.html

[thetyrantlizard]

From the "Why is everybody so excited?" department: They found an almost complete edmontosaurus with skin patches. But--skin patches have been found numerous times, and nearly complete duckbill dinosaurs are hardly rare, and have been known for decades. Moreover, it is hardly news that dinosaurs were covered in--scales. The scientists seem to be exaggerating the significance of their find. A complete hadrosaur is cool, but it is hardly earth-shattering or paradigm-changing news.

Then again, I can imagine why the dino-bird people are excited. "Yes, scales! Imagine that!", perhaps the dino-bird paleos are saying. "All this time we thought they went around in feathers!"

dsc.discovery.com/news/2006/11/21/dinofind_din.html?category=dinosaurs&guid=20061121142030

[thetyrantlizard]

They have discovered the largest European dinosaur. Not surprisingly, it is a sauropod. It's called Turiasaurus; it was found in Riodeva in Spain, lived 150 million years ago, weighed over 40 tons, and was 30 m. long.

[Thorondor 33]

When was it discovered?

[thetyrantlizard]

The first bones were found in May 2003. They found 70 bones, which they figure to be a quarter of the skeleton.