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The Palaeontology thread |
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#426 |
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Were all Dinosaurs Bird like? Were any reptiles/lizards?
Lizards are reptiles but are Lepidosaurs (along with the snakes and the tuataras) so they are only distantly related. So no - none were lizard like. ![]() Even more on Spinosaurus. http://qilong.wordpress.com/2014/09/...-spino-saurus/ http://theropoddatabase.blogspot.co.uk/ And the palaeontologist who found the new material. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...nosaur-fossil/ |
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#427 |
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Thanks Keyser. The waters had become muddied for me in recent years.
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#428 |
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Thanks Keyser. The waters had become muddied for me in recent years.
![]() More thoughts of Dreadnoughtus with a beautiful scale chart of the largest Titanosaur sauropods - as you can see as big as it was (and still with plenty of growing to do) it was by no means the largest Titanosaur, let alone the largest sauropod (the largest Brachiosaurid and Diplodocid species were all contenders as well). http://paleoking.blogspot.co.at/2014...-and-myth.html Size comparison chart. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-geBRfemnrI...adnoughtus.jpg |
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#429 |
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The latest by Scott Hartman on the new Spinosaurus reconstruction - the first article that I posted by him I will link to again because of the superb discussions both have underneath in the comments sections.
Part 1. http://www.skeletaldrawing.com/home/...osaurus9112014 Part 2. http://www.skeletaldrawing.com/home/...osaurus9132014 Luis V. Ray has updated his Spinosaurus illustration as well. http://luisvrey.wordpress.com/2014/0...s-runs-ashore/ The debate will rage on for months to come. ![]() *One of the linked articles a few days ago is wrong - the skeletal reconstruction is a full size 15.2 metres long. |
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#430 |
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Nizar Ibrahim's excellent 15 minute presentation on Spinosaurus and the eco-system it inhabited.
It was not a place you would really want to visit on holiday. http://video.nationalgeographic.com/...e=relatedvideo There are lots of new reconstructions of the great aquatic theropod based on the new skeletal material. Here are three of the best I have seen so far. ![]() http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs71/i/20...is-d7wj1j2.jpg http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs71/i/20...ed-d4r751l.jpg http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/i/20...is-d7z799f.jpg |
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#431 |
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More discussions on Spinosaurus - I think that this is the last I will post on this theropod for a while and if anyone is interested there are more than enough links on this thread for people to keep up to date on the subject.
![]() http://www.skeletaldrawing.com/home/...esponsd9182014 http://svpow.com/2014/09/16/guest-po...urus-painting/ |
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#432 |
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New 'Barry Manilow' hadrosaur Rhinorex discovered!
That's some nose - I would just hate to be there if it ever caught a cold and sneezed - no doubt Snotageddon would ensue! ![]() http://phenomena.nationalgeographic....eous-quandary/ http://phys.org/news/2014-09-hadrosa...spotlight.html http://www.sci-news.com/paleontology...tah-02158.html |
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#433 |
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And now for some pre-mammals...
Yes, it's Synapsid time https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=sy...ed=0CAYQ_AUoAQ, there's more about them here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synapsid and this is why they're in the news: Mammals' reptile ancestors may have hunted at night Talk about vibrant nightlife. We thought the threat of predatory dinosaurs forced early mammals to become nocturnal. But it looks like their ancestors were night owls long before that. We can tell when an animal is most active by looking at its eyes: big ones are a sign of nocturnal habits, while smaller eyes indicate an animal is active during the day, or diurnal. Eyes don't fossilise, but a bony ring that surrounds some animals' eyes does, revealing eye size in extinct animals and hinting at what time of day the animal was active. http://www.newscientist.com/article/...l#.VB7cuCXwDzo Perhaps the best known synapsid is good ol' Dimetrodon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimetrodon https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=di...ed=0CAYQ_AUoAQ https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=di...kQ_AUoAg&dpr=1 |
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#434 |
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Quote:
And now for some pre-mammals...
Yes, it's Synapsid time https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=sy...ed=0CAYQ_AUoAQ, there's more about them here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synapsid and this is why they're in the news: Mammals' reptile ancestors may have hunted at night Talk about vibrant nightlife. We thought the threat of predatory dinosaurs forced early mammals to become nocturnal. But it looks like their ancestors were night owls long before that. We can tell when an animal is most active by looking at its eyes: big ones are a sign of nocturnal habits, while smaller eyes indicate an animal is active during the day, or diurnal. Eyes don't fossilise, but a bony ring that surrounds some animals' eyes does, revealing eye size in extinct animals and hinting at what time of day the animal was active. http://www.newscientist.com/article/...l#.VB7cuCXwDzo Perhaps the best known synapsid is good ol' Dimetrodon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimetrodon https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=di...ed=0CAYQ_AUoAQ https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=di...kQ_AUoAg&dpr=1 ![]() A few articles on Dimetrodon that you may not have read. ![]() http://phenomena.nationalgeographic....-a-nasty-bite/ http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/dim...-the-dinosaurs |
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#435 |
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#436 |
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More on the bird-dinosaur transition.
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic....ian-explosion/ http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...burst-science/ http://www.livescience.com/48008-bir...sing-link.html This year has really been a remarkable one for pterosaur discoveries and this excellent overview tells the tale. ![]() http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...or-pterosaurs/ |
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#437 |
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Some nice recent articles.
Firstly as I suspected for many years despite being longer than T. rex the Spinosaurus was considerably lighter at 'only' around 6-7 tons. So the decades of 'Spinozilla' - 12-20 ton - rex destroying JP3 bullshit have finally been crushed - Tyrannosaurus is still the heaviest and most formidable theropod that has ever lived. http://theropoda.blogspot.co.uk/ How dinosaur wrists turned into bird wings. http://www.livescience.com/48076-din...gs-images.html The current state of palaeo-art. http://palaeo-electronica.org/conten...f-the-palaeoar Enjoy.
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#438 |
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Let's look at an article about dinosaur fossil theft with a positive outcome:
The woman who saved Mongolia's stolen dinosaurs Oyungerel Tsedevdamba is minister of culture, sports, and tourism for Mongolia. She is also president of the Democratic Women’s Union of Mongolia and an adviser on human rights to Mongolian president Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj. She has studied at Stanford University and at Yale University. Though illegal for more than a century, looting Mongolian dinosaur fossils was commonplace—until Tsedevdamba stepped in. http://www.slate.com/articles/health...of_stolen.html And now it's time for some light relief: A dinosaur card has been found from 64.99 million years ago - http://tinypic.com/r/2a0gb2h/8 Some prehistoric marketing advice - http://www.gapingvoid.com/dinosaur001A1.jpg |
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#439 |
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Quote:
Let's look at an article about dinosaur fossil theft with a positive outcome:
The woman who saved Mongolia's stolen dinosaurs Oyungerel Tsedevdamba is minister of culture, sports, and tourism for Mongolia. She is also president of the Democratic Women’s Union of Mongolia and an adviser on human rights to Mongolian president Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj. She has studied at Stanford University and at Yale University. Though illegal for more than a century, looting Mongolian dinosaur fossils was commonplace—until Tsedevdamba stepped in. http://www.slate.com/articles/health...of_stolen.html And now it's time for some light relief: A dinosaur card has been found from 64.99 million years ago - http://tinypic.com/r/2a0gb2h/8 Some prehistoric marketing advice - http://www.gapingvoid.com/dinosaur001A1.jpg ![]() Plenty more to come when I have more time as well.
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#440 |
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Join Date: May 2014
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Dinosaur graveyard found in Mexico yields biggest number of specimens ever Quote:
Researchers from the University of Heidelberg, the State Museum of Natural History in Karlsruhe and the Desert Museum in Saltillo, Mexico, have uncovered at least 14 fossils of what they believe to be dinosaurs in a tiny area only 164 feet by 656 feet in size. The researchers also found the bones of at least 15 more specimens only a few miles away. http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/lif...und-in-mexico/“I know no other place where so many dinosaurs have been found on such a small area,” said Wolfgang Stinnesbeck from the University of Heidelberg, according to Russia's RIA Novosti. While the area where the fossils were discovered looks like an inhospitable wasteland at the moment, 70 million years ago the desert landscape was actually a fertile piece of land. “There was a huge delta here and several rivers were flowing into the Gulf of Mexico,” said paleontologist Eberhard Frey from the University of Heidelberg. “The ecosystem here was vibrant. Apart from dinosaur bones we have found four species of turtles, remains of a small crocodile and teeth of early mammals.” I wish there were more photos. |
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#441 |
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Can-opening sabretooths - a new theory on how these massively built predators used their jaws to dispatch prey.
http://news.discovery.com/animals/se...ner-141001.htm http://www.plosone.org/article/info%...l.pone.0107456 http://news.sciencemag.org/paleontol...an-opener-cats The largest species of the Smilodon genus populator at up to almost half a ton may well have been the heaviest felid ever to live. |
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#442 |
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The poor Spinosaurus fans are tearing their hair out on the web at the revelation that it would not have been able to beat a T. rex in combat (like in the bullshit T. rex hating JP3) or probably even the second heaviest theropods - the giant Carcharadontosaurids (like Giganotosaurus, Carcharodontosaurus, Tyrannotitan and Mapusaurus).
This cartoon says it all. ![]() http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs71/i/20...52-d7z1h8v.jpg |
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#443 |
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An interesting new paper on sauropod feeding biomechanics and how many species of such gigantic animals were able to share the same ecosystem without depleting the food supplies available to them.
![]() http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2014/o...opods-fed.html http://www.theguardian.com/science/l...pod-diplodocus http://phys.org/news/2014-10-dinosau...ner-table.html The remains of the early carnivorous dinosaur Tachiraptor admirabilis have been discovered - and I just love the illustration - how the hell JP4 is going to get away with showing incredibly old-fashioned scaly dinosaurs is beyond me. What a wasted opportunity to inform and educate the general public about these wonderful animals. http://www.livescience.com/48188-pre...+Headline+Feed http://news.sciencemag.org/latin-ame...ass-extinction http://www.natureworldnews.com/artic...s-survivor.htm |
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#444 |
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Join Date: May 2014
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Quote:
The poor Spinosaurus fans are tearing their hair out on the web at the revelation that it would not have been able to beat a T. rex in combat (like in the bullshit T. rex hating JP3) or probably even the second heaviest theropods - the giant Carcharadontosaurids (like Giganotosaurus, Carcharodontosaurus, Tyrannotitan and Mapusaurus).
This cartoon says it all. ![]() http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs71/i/20...52-d7z1h8v.jpg Child friendly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO6DGWsW6Pc I love Pterodactyls.
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#445 |
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So does this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHpDPuh8A2Q Warning: Adults only.
Child friendly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO6DGWsW6Pc I love Pterodactyls. ![]() ![]() Pterosaurs were a vastly diverse group of animals and one of the best sites on the net on these incredible masters of the sky is Marl Witton's and also here is a link for his latest book on Amazon. http://markwitton-com.blogspot.co.uk/ http://www.markwitton.com/# http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pterosaurs-N.../dp/0691150613 This is another excellent site and blog - some really good reading if you are interested in them. ![]() http://pterosaur.net/ http://pterosaur-net.blogspot.co.uk/ |
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#446 |
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Quote:
![]() Pterosaurs were a vastly diverse group of animals and one of the best sites on the net on these incredible masters of the sky is Marl Witton's and also here is a link for his latest book on Amazon. http://markwitton-com.blogspot.co.uk/ http://www.markwitton.com/# http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pterosaurs-N.../dp/0691150613 This is another excellent site and blog - some really good reading if you are interested in them. ![]() http://pterosaur.net/ http://pterosaur-net.blogspot.co.uk/
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#447 |
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Thanks for those awesome links, Keyser. I'll be checking them all out after dinner.
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#448 |
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You are welcome.
![]() This is really interesting: Does Deinonychus really have one of the most powerful bites of all dinosaurs? Quote:
Jaws with relatively small muscles have been the norm in Deinonychus palaeoart since its discovery, but is it time we changed that? Were their jaws actually visibly and powerfully muscled as inferred by their trace feeding evidence, or is there something missing here? Is it significant that lower estimates of their bite forces match those of animals which can also puncture bone (wolves - see Haynes 1982)?
http://markwitton-com.blogspot.co.uk...ve-one-of.htmlReally great image of the Deinonychus: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bkl7p2rEaG...e%2BWitton.png |
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#449 |
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I've added http://www.markwitton.com and http://pterosaur.net to my favs.
This is really interesting: Does Deinonychus really have one of the most powerful bites of all dinosaurs? http://markwitton-com.blogspot.co.uk...ve-one-of.html Really great image of the Deinonychus: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bkl7p2rEaG...e%2BWitton.png
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#450 |
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