The Paleontology Thread

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Nonc Hilaire
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Re: The Paleontology Thread

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Doc wrote:
Nonc Hilaire wrote:Man Made Global slowing! Good one! :lol:

You shouldn't laugh, you Man Made Global Slowing denier !! Do you work for the big evil corporation that are raping the earth's spin for profits? There is a consensus on Global Slowing. Scientist all agree that the Earth's rotation is slowing by two seconds per year !!!(Also, I looked in the mirror and me and the guy in it absolutely agree). The Big evil wind energy corps are trying to silence those who object. They even make the bogus claim that if the earth's rotation did slow down to one day per year that Climate Change would completely stop !! Yet deny the fact that longer days mean more work hours per day. Which would mean more profits for them !!!


SO stop laughing and be serious People that laugh at MMGS should be put in jail !!! We have to stop Man Made Global Slowing NOW #&$&$&!!!!
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YMix
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Re: The Paleontology Thread

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Fapping?
A dinosaur mystery that has baffled palaeontologists for 50 years has finally been solved.

In the 1960s, researchers unearthed two gigantic dinosaur arms. For decades, scientists have speculated about what kind of beast they belonged to.

Now, the rest of the dinosaur's body has been unearthed, and researchers say that the creature is even more bizarre than they had thought.

They say it was huge, with a beak, a humped back and giant, hoofed feet.

The study is published in the journal Nature.

Lead researcher Yuong-Nam Lee, from South Korea's Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (Kigam), said: "It turned out to be one of the weirdest dinosaurs, it's weird beyond our imagination."

[...]
Oh. Wrong guess.
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Apollonius
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Re: The Paleontology Thread

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Big 'groundhog' fossil from age of dinosaurs rewrites mammal history - Will Dunham, CBC News, 6 November 2014
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/big-g ... -1.2826049

There is no doubt scientists had a lot of luck on their side in discovering a critter from the age of dinosaurs that rewrites our understanding of the history of early mammals.

The researchers said on Wednesday they unearthed in Madagascar the fossil of a remarkable creature resembling a big groundhog that lived about 66 million years ago and, at about 9 kilograms (20 pounds), was enormous compared to most other mammals of the Mesozoic Era.

Judging from a wonderfully preserved skull with a bizarre set of features, it was an active plant eater with strong jaws, keen sense of smell, well-developed hearing and terrific eyesight under low light conditions, they said.

It is named Vintana sertichi. Vintana means luck in the Malagasy language, referring to the fortuitous circumstances behind how it was found. ...
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Miss_Faucie_Fishtits
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Re: The Paleontology Thread

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Because this is just so...... there......'>>.......

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http://health.usnews.com/best-diet/paleo-diet
She irons her jeans, she's evil.........
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Nonc Hilaire
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Re: The Paleontology Thread

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

Miss_Faucie_Fishtits wrote:Because this is just so...... there......'>>.......

Image

http://health.usnews.com/best-diet/paleo-diet
This "Movember" thing is getting wierd.
“Christ has no body now but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks among His people to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses His creation.”

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Miss_Faucie_Fishtits
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Re: The Paleontology Thread

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make it a fund raiser and you can do anything.....'>>.........
She irons her jeans, she's evil.........
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Endovelico
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WOW!...

Post by Endovelico »

Velociraptor ancestor was 'winged dragon'
By Victoria Gill - Science reporter, BBC News - 16 July 2015

Scientists have discovered a winged dinosaur - an ancestor of the velociraptor - that they say was on the cusp of becoming a bird.

The 6ft 6in (2m) creature was almost perfectly preserved in limestone, thanks to a volcanic eruption that had buried it in north-east China.
Dinossaurio alado.JPG
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And the 125-million year-old fossil suggests many other dinosaurs, including velociraptors, would have looked like "big, fluffy killer birds".

But it is unlikely that it could fly.

An artist's impression of Zhenyuanlong shows how strange this feathered beast may have looked

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The dinosaur has been named Zhenyuanlong, meaning "Zhenyuan's dragon" - in honour of the man who procured the fossil for the museum in Jinzhou, allowing it to be studied.

The University of Edinburgh and the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences collaboration is published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Lead researcher Dr Steve Brusatte said it was "the single most beautiful fossil I have had the privilege to work on".

"It has short arms, and it is covered in feathers [with] proper wings with layers of quill-pen feathers," he said.
Zhenyuanlong is an ancestor of the infamous velociraptor

"So even though this is a dinosaur, even though it is a close relative of velociraptor, it looks exactly like a turkey or a vulture."

Dr John Nudds, a senior lecturer in palaeontology at the University of Manchester, told BBC News the find was part of an "increasingly complex picture" of emerging evidence "that certainly a lot of [dinosaurs] and possibly even all of them had feathers or at least downy hair".

Dr Brusatte said: "It will blow some people's minds to realise that those dinosaurs in the movies would have been even weirder, and I think even scarier - like big fluffy birds from hell."

He said its large body made it unlikely Zhenyuanlong would have been able to fly.
The complex feathers of the dinosaur's wings are beautifully preserved

"So maybe [wings] did not evolve for flight - perhaps they evolved as a display structure, or to protect eggs in the nest," he said.

"Or maybe this animal was starting to move around in the trees and was able to glide."

Dr Brusatte said: "China is the epicentre of palaeontology right now.

"There are [museum] storerooms full of new dinosaur fossils that have never been studied before.

He added: "This is the most exciting time maybe in the history of palaeontology."

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33510288
The world is full of wonders!... Will we ever be able to "reverse engineer" these creatures?...
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YMix
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Re: The Paleontology Thread

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After about 200,000 years, the paleontological threads merged. And grew wings. Fascinating
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Zack Morris
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Re: The Paleontology Thread

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A couple of photos from Dinosaur Provincial Park in Alberta. I took the guided tour of the famous Centrosaurus quarry. Highly recommended, by the way! Unfortunately, photos of the Centrosaurus bones are on my camera and I've been too lazy to transfer them but here are some snaps off of my phone.
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A dromaeosaur!
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Panorama looking outwards from the quarry.
Panorama looking outwards from the quarry.
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Gorgosaurus tooth in the ground. Centrosaurus bones make up 96% of fossils at the quarry, the other 4% are Gorgosaurus teeth who lost them during scavenging.
Gorgosaurus tooth in the ground. Centrosaurus bones make up 96% of fossils at the quarry, the other 4% are Gorgosaurus teeth who lost them during scavenging.
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Simple Minded

Re: The Paleontology Thread

Post by Simple Minded »

Zack Morris wrote:A couple of photos from Dinosaur Provincial Park in Alberta. I took the guided tour of the famous Centrosaurus quarry. Highly recommended, by the way! Unfortunately, photos of the Centrosaurus bones are on my camera and I've been too lazy to transfer them but here are some snaps off of my phone.
some of those fossils look like modern human footwear...... kinda blows god and Darwin right outa the water, which leaves only aliens as a viable explanation.....
noddy
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Re: The Paleontology Thread

Post by noddy »

the preservation on the first one is far too good to be millions of years old, obviously 5 or 6 thousand at most.
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Apollonius
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Re: The Paleontology Thread

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Mystery of how snakes lost their legs solved by reptile fossil - ScienceDaily, 27 November 2015
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 195113.htm


Fresh analysis of a reptile fossil is helping scientists solve an evolutionary puzzle -- how snakes lost their limbs.

The 90 million-year-old skull is giving researchers vital clues about how snakes evolved.

Comparisons between CT scans of the fossil and modern reptiles indicate that snakes lost their legs when their ancestors evolved to live and hunt in burrows, which many snakes still do today.

The findings show snakes did not lose their limbs in order to live in the sea, as was previously suggested.

Scientists used CT scans to examine the bony inner ear ofDinilysia patagonica, a 2-metre long reptile closely linked to modern snakes. These bony canals and cavities, like those in the ears of modern burrowing snakes, controlled its hearing and balance.

They built 3D virtual models to compare the inner ears of the fossils with those of modern lizards and snakes. Researchers found a distinctive structure within the inner ear of animals that actively burrow, which may help them detect prey and predators. This shape was not present in modern snakes that live in water or above ground.

The findings help scientists fill gaps in the story of snake evolution, and confirm Dinilysia patagonica as the largest burrowing snake ever known. They also offer clues about a hypothetical ancestral species from which all modern snakes descended, which was likely a burrower.

The study, published in Science Advances, was supported by the Royal Society.

Dr Hongyu Yi, of the University of Edinburgh's School of GeoSciences, who led the research, said: "How snakes lost their legs has long been a mystery to scientists, but it seems that this happened when their ancestors became adept at burrowing. The inner ears of fossils can reveal a remarkable amount of information, and are very useful when the exterior of fossils are too damaged or fragile to examine."

Mark Norell, of the American Museum of Natural History, who took part in the study, said: "This discovery would not have been possible a decade ago -- CT scanning has revolutionised how we can study ancient animals. We hope similar studies can shed light on the evolution of more species, including lizards, crocodiles and turtles."
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Apollonius
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Re: The Paleontology Thread

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Rare fossil of a horned dinosaur found from 'lost continent' - ScienceDaily, 30 November 2015
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 135013.htm


A rare fossil from eastern North America of a dog-sized horned dinosaur has been identified by a scientist at the University of Bath. The fossil provides evidence of an east-west divide in North American dinosaur evolution.

During the Late Cretaceous period, 66-100 million years ago, the land mass that is now North America was split in two continents by a shallow sea, the Western Interior Seaway, which ran from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean. Dinosaurs living in the western continent, called Laramidia, were similar to those found in Asia.

However, few fossils of animals from the eastern 'lost continent' of Appalachia have been found because these areas being densely vegetated, making it difficult to discover and excavate fossils.

Dr Nick Longrich, from the Milner Centre for Evolution based in the University of Bath's Department of Biology & Biochemistry, studied one of these rare fossils, a fragment of a jaw bone kept in the Peabody Museum at Yale University. It turned out to be a member of the horned dinosaurs -- the Ceratopsia. His study, published in the journal Cretaceous Research, highlights it as the first fossil from a ceratopsian dinosaur identified from this period of eastern North America.

Ceratopsia is a group of plant-eating horned dinosaurs that lived in the Cretaceous period. The fossil in question comes from a smaller cousin of the better known Triceratops, the leptoceratopsids. It was about the size of a large dog.

The specimen studied by Longrich was too incomplete to identify the exact species accurately, but showed a strange twist to the jaw, causing the teeth to curve downward and outwards in a beak shape. The jaw was also more slender than that ofCeratopsia found in western North America, suggesting that these dinosaurs had a different diet to their western relatives, and had evolved along a distinct evolutionary path.

Dr Nick Longrich explained: "Just as many animals and plants found in Australia today are quite different to those found in other parts of the world, it seems that animals in the eastern part of North America in the Late Cretaceous period evolved in a completely different way to those found in the western part of what is now North America due to a long period of isolation.

"This adds to the theory that these two land masses were separated by a stretch of water, stopping animals from moving between them, causing the animals in Appalachia to evolve in a completely different direction, resulting in some pretty weird looking dinosaurs.

"Studying fossils from this period, when the sea levels were very high and the landmasses across the Earth were very fragmented, is like looking at several independent experiments in dinosaur evolution.

"At the time, many land masses -- eastern North America, Europe, Africa, South America, India, and Australia -- were isolated by water.

"Each one of these island continents would have evolved its own unique dinosaurs- so there are probably many more species out there to find."
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Apollonius
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Re: The Paleontology Thread

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Found: an ancient crocodile as long as a bus - Melissa Hogenboom, BBC News, 14 January 2016
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160114 ... g-as-a-bus


The largest ever sea-dwelling crocodile has been uncovered in Tunisia. It was longer than a great white shark and its skull was as big as a person.

A new species of a marine-dwelling crocodile has been discovered in Tunisia in northern Africa.
It lived about 130 million years ago, at the start of a period called the Cretaceous. At the time dinosaurs dominated the land and huge reptiles ruled the seas.

The beast has been given the appropriate moniker Machimosaurus rex, which translates as "fighting lizard-king".

It was over 30ft (10m) long, about the size of a large bus. Its skull alone was over 5ft (1.6m) long.

This makes it the largest "thalattosuchian" ever found. The name refers to an extinct group of marine reptiles that were closely related to crocodiles.
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Apollonius
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Re: The Paleontology Thread

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Meet the most massive dinosaur to ever stomp the earth - Ella Davies, BBC News, 1 February 2016
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160201 ... -the-earth

The biggest dinosaur was longer than an Olympic swimming pool, taller than a five-storey building and heavier than a jumbo jet


The first question is how you define "biggest".


Supersaurus vivianae was one of the longest dinosaurs.Scientists estimate it reached up to 34 metres (111 ft) from its nose to the tip of its tail, based on its spinal bones.

Arguably the tallest dinosaur is Sauroposeidon proteles, a massive plant-eater discovered in North America. Thanks to a ludicrously long neck, it stood 17m (55 ft) tall, but relatively few fossils of it have been found. Its estimated height is largely based on the more complete remains of Giraffatitan brancai, which once held the "biggest dinosaur" title.

The heaviest known dinosaur is currently Argentinosaurus, a beast so massive it shook previous dino size tables when it wasdescribed in the 1990s. Weight estimates range from 60 to 100 tonnes: again, we cannot be precise because the fossils are so limited.


Now there is another challenger in the dinosaur big leagues. It could be the heaviest, tallest and longest one yet – and that is based on the most complete evidence.

The new contender is a titanosaur, meaning it belongs to the same group as Argentinosaurus.Named for the mythological giants of Ancient Greece, titanosaurs probably lived 70-100 million years ago. ...
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Zack Morris
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Re: The Paleontology Thread

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I saw the titanosaur on MLK day, right after the exhibit opened. If you ever find yourself in NYC, make sure to block off a few hours for the American Museum of Natural History.
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Zack Morris
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Re: The Paleontology Thread

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My phone's camera can't truly capture the overwhelming scale of this animal.
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Apollonius
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Re: The Paleontology Thread

Post by Apollonius »

Hi Zack,



I've spent some time in NYC and of course I've visited the American Museum of Natural History. It is fabulous.
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