Is Dinosaur Park Apatosaurs an endangered species?

From Raid City Journal: Is Dinosaur Park Apatosaurs an endangered species?
Construction crews are racing to finish repairs to the fire-damaged Dinosaur Park concession stand in time for the start of the summer tourism season in May.

But the park’s main attraction – the long-necked concrete Apatosaurus – may not be so lucky. City officials said this week they are still unsure how to proceed with repairs to the Rapid City icon.

“Obviously, we’d like to have it done before June, but we haven’t quite got a battle plan together,” city parks manager Lon VanDeusen said. “We want to get it fixed as soon as possible, but we want to get it fixed right, too.”

The 1930s-era statue has been fenced off since last fall when a big chunk of the dinosaur’s snout fell off while city crews were doing routine maintenance. The damage was caused by water that got into the concrete and rusted out the metal cage supporting the statue’s nose.

VanDeusen said the city has received a couple of proposals so far for repairs. But before making a decision, they are awaiting a few more to get a better idea of what can be done and how much it will cost.

“It’s a unique deal. It’s not like replacing a section of sidewalk,” VanDeusen said. “It’s going to require some engineering expertise as well as some artistic work.”

The right time to do the repairs is also an issue. Anything involving heavy equipment or aerial work would likely require parts of the park to be fenced off as a construction site, something that would be less than ideal during the busy summer season, VanDeusen said.

Progress is being made, though, on repairing the park’s concession stand, which was damaged in a fire in January.

The fire, which started outside the store, destroyed the wood deck at the rear of the building and damaged parts of the roof and back wall.

On Thursday, crews were working on the new concrete patio that will replace the deck off the back of the building.

The damage to the interior of the building already has been cleaned up, and the parts of the roof that were burned have been repaired.

The entire exterior of the building has also been repainted a deep maroon color and new doors and windows installed.

City landscape designer Alex DeSmidt is overseeing the project and said they are on track to get store operators Chuck and Vicki McLain back into the building in May. The store is typically open May 1 to Sept. 30.

Construction began March 7 and is ahead of schedule due to the warm weather, he said.

“It’s coming along pretty well,” DeSmidt said. “It needed a makeover.”

The cost of the project is $115,665, DeSmidt said, which includes work that is not directly related to the fire damage.

At the time of the fire, the Parks & Recreation Department was preparing to do about $89,000 in improvements to the building, including Americans with Disabilities Act upgrades and new lighting, flooring, roofing and ceiling.

DeSmidt said they were able to work some of those improvements into the repair project, starting with making the building more accessible to individuals with disabilities.

The wall at the entrance to the restrooms was moved back about 4 inches to provide better clearance for wheelchairs, and crews will build a new ramp to the north of the building that meets ADA requirements.

Inside, the planned new carpet, tile, ceiling and lighting will also be installed – now necessary because of the fire damage.

VanDeusen said the city doesn’t know how much of the project will be covered by the city’s insurance policy. A $50,000 deductible was paid out of the city’s Capital Improvement Program contingency fund.

“We’re not sure what the official damage assessment is going to be,” VanDeusen said.

The Big Desk

I've just acquired a gigantic desk. It's so tall that I have to reach up from my short little chair to type. This is too painful, so I need to get a taller chair tomorrow, so no posts til Saturday.

(You've probably never seen a British TV show called Is It Legal? but a character in that gets a Big Desk - so big that he can lay on top of it. Mine is not that big, but it is still too damn big!)

N.C. Zoo begins summer hours, opens big dinosaur exhibit

From WRAL.com: N.C. Zoo begins summer hours, opens big dinosaur exhibit
The N.C. Zoo is opening a major dinosaur exhibit this weekend featuring 15 life-like animatronic creatures.

Dinosaurs represents more than a dozen dinosaur species, who will inhabit the deep forest exhibit through October. The exhibit is near the zoo's African Pavilion. Dinosaurs on display include the Tyrannosaurus Rex and the Brachiosaurus.

Texas-based Billings Productions, which specializes in dinosaur exhibits for zoos, theme parks and other attractions across the country, created the creatures for the exhibit. Billings uses hydraulic motion systems and painted rubber skin on steel frames to give the dinosaurs a life-like look. Movements include grasping hands, menacing class and gnashing teeth.

Visitors can even operate one of the dinosaurs using a remote control box.

The exhibit opens Saturday, when the rest of the zoo gears up for a busier spring and summer season. On Saturday, the park's summer hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily begin. Its rides and entertainment sites will open to the public. They include the zoo's carousel, the Acacia Station Giraffe Deck, and the Dino 4D theater.

And the zoo's Africa entrance and Africa parking lot will reopen Saturday with shuttle bus service between the parking lots from 11 a.m. until 30 minutes after closing.

The N.C. Zoo in Asheboro is about 90 minutes to two hours from the Triangle. If you've never been, this is a massive attraction spanning 500 acres with a lot of walking required. Be prepared for the weather with umbrellas or sunscreen, depending on the day's forecast. I've never seen it all in one day, but we've always had a wonderful time.

Individual day passes are $8 to $12 per person (kids under 2 are admitted for free). Combo passes, which include tickets for the carousel, giraffe deck, theater and Dinosaurs, are $14 to $18 per person.

Exploding dinosaur mystery solved

From Examiner.com: Exploding dinosaur mystery solved
Scientists at the University of Zurich and Basel have succeeded in explaining why fossilized dinosaur embryos are often found at such great distances from the fossils of their mothers in an article published at the Alpha Galileo web site on March 27, 2011.

Previously, paleontologists were convinced that the gases created due to death were sufficient to rupture a dead dinosaur’s carcass and expell the embryos at the distances that have been commonly observed in most dinosaur embryo finds.

Examination of ichthyosaur carcasses and embryos found near them indicated that the gases produced by death are not sufficient in pressure to rupture a dinosaurs skin and expel embryos to such distances seen in many different fossil finds.. The mother dinosaur skeleton is usually found nearly intact. Ichthyosaurs were large ocean living dinosaurs that thrived from 245 to 95 million years ago.
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The gases caused by death are the culprit. The dead dinosaur first sank due to their weight. The death gases caused the massive carcass to rise in the ocean where predators could consume it. The skeleton of the mother could relatively remain intact while the embryos would be scattered if not consumed.

Some animals just sank and decomposed. The embryos were scattered by strong underwater currents.

Paper:
Achim Reisdorf, Roman Bux, Daniel Wyler, Mark Benecke, Christian Klug, Michael Maisch, Peter Fornaro, Andreas Wetzel (2012): Float, explode or sink: post-mortem fate of lung-breathing marine vertebrates. In: Michael Wuttke & Achim Reisdorf (eds): Taphonomic processes in terrestrial and marine environments. – Palaeobiodiversity and Palaeoenvironments, 92(1): 67-81. DOI: 10.1007/s12549-011-0067-z

Ohio: Dinosaurs roar into Cedar Point

From WKYC: Dinosaurs roar into Cedar Point
SANDUSKY -- Monstrous roars are echoing at Cedar Point as the summertime scream park invites guests to come face to face with dinosaurs.

The new 2012 attraction -- "Dinosaurs Alive" -- which is currently under construction on Adventure Island near Millennium Force, features more than 50 animatronic dinosaurs.

WKYC.com was invited to the park for an exclusive sneak peek of Dinosaurs Alive with Bryan Edwards, the spokesman for Cedar Point.

"We're putting them (dinosaurs) out on the island right now, hooking up the sound system to them. It's really going to be a cool experience. I don't think words and pictures will do it justice until you actually see these things in person and how big and massive they are."

The decision to bring these massive creatures to the park came from another Ohio destination -- Kings Island.

"The reason we brought 'Dinosaurs Alive' to Cedar Point this year was our sister park, Kings Island, down near Cincinnati, introduced dinosaurs and had a similar attraction at their park last year and it was hugely successful," Edwards says. "Guests of all ages really enjoyed it."

Although this addition isn't a signature scream machine, Edwards says it's a family experience.

"We'll have three dinosaurs that will have interactive controls that you can move the head, the body, the tail. There will also be a dinosaur dig-pit area for children that they can go through and actually unearth dinosaur bones."

Edwards anticipates it will take guests at least 45 minutes to soak in the entire attraction.

"Dinosaurs Alive," which costs an additional $5, will debut when the park opens for the 2012 season on Saturday, May 12.

The long-running Paddlewheel Excursion was removed at the end of the 2011 season to make room for "Dinosaurs Alive."

Australia: Dinosaur museum proponents fossick for funds

Note that "fossick" is Australian slang for "searching"

From ABC (Australia) News: Dinosaur museum proponents fossick for funds
Work is continuing on a proposed $2.4 million dinosaur museum in south-west Queensland.

The Quilpie Shire Council is working with the Outback Gondwana Foundation to build a facility at Eromanga, south-west of Longreach.

Australia's largest dinosaur, Cooper, was discovered in the region several years ago.

Foundation spokeswoman Anita Milroy says they are still vying for federal funding.

She says some of the ancient fossils being discovered in the region are from dinosaurs not seen before.

"A lot of them look to be completely new - new genus and new species - so this will really be very interesting to international scientists," she said.

"For example, the dinosaurs, they are part of the Cretaceous Age and during that age they all died out.

"It was a big extinction event, so it's pretty exciting to be finding dinosaurs that have never been seen before."

Ms Milroy says they are feeling more confident about securing round two funding from Regional Development Australia.

"We have to be shovel ready by May and there hasn't been a lot of time between round one and round two but the goalposts changed, so we've had to adapt to that and be ready to go," she said.

"There is a lot of work to be done ... I don't think there have been any projects west of the Great Divide that have managed to get any funding before.

"We are certainly not asking for a huge amount of money and I think the benefit that will be returned from it will be quite positive."

It's Tyrannosaurus Rex! Review: Learn How to Say 'Ankylosaur' Correctly

From PCAdvisor: It's Tyrannosaurus Rex! Review: Learn How to Say 'Ankylosaur' Correctly
It's Tyrannosaurus Rex! is an interactive, illustrated children's book published by Oceanhouse Media, with help from the Smithsonian Institution. It's a fun, well-executed ebook/Android app that's perfect for dino-loving kids of all ages.

The book follows Oceanhouse Media's "omBook" format for ebooks in offering you three reading options: 'Auto Play' reads the book out loud, turning the pages as the story goes on; 'Read to Me' reads it out loud but lets kids turn the pages at their own pace; and 'Read It Myself' enables kids to handler the reading and the page turning on their own--without narration or automatic page-turning.

The app is extremely well executed, with gorgeous graphics and great sound effects. The text is crisp and easy to read, and words are highlighted in yellow as the narrator reads them aloud. Each "page" features wide-screen artwork, giving the app freedom to zoom in or out and to pan across the scene as the story progresses.

The scenes are also mildly interactive. When you tap on any of the creatures in the scene, their names (Tyrannosaurus rex, Ankylosaur, and so on) zoom up; if you pause the narration of the main story, the narrator also tells you the name of the specified animal. At the end of the main story, you can read (and listen to, if you like) background information on the Tyrannosaurus rex.

The background soundtrack is good, but not perfect. Most of the time it's just ambient noise, such as crickets chirping or water rushing, but occasionally the sounds get loud enough to drown out the narration. This could be a problem, especially because a lot of the words in the book are fairly complex Latin dinosaur names.

It's Tyrannosaurus Rex! is an almost-perfect Android e-book, and I recommend it for kids and adults alike. It's beautifully illustrated, it runs very smoothly, and poking dinosaurs to learn their names is all kinds of fun. Plus, it's a collaboration with the Smithsonian and comes packed with interesting facts and information.

This app was tested using a Samsung Galaxy Nexus running Android 4.0.2

UK: Fossil helps unearth Hastings’ dinosaur secrets

From St. Leonards & Hastings Observer: Fossil helps unearth Hastings’ dinosaur secrets
THE discovery of a rare fossilised bone by a collector could hold the key to prehistoric life in 1066 Country.

Ray Tompsett bought the pterosaur limb bone for less than £10 at a recent boot fair from the previous owner, who found it in Hastings.

The avid fossil collector, who is a member of Hastings and District Geological Society, and lives in Bexhill, said: “It’s quite rare to find one of these bones in this area. I was quite pleased to get it and showed it to other society members.”

Ken Brooks, the society’s chairman, said: “Pterosaurs, or flying reptiles, lived in the Hastings area during the Lower Cretaceous Period, around 140 million years ago.

“Some of them grew to a huge size, with a wingspan of up to five metres, so they were absolutely massive.

“It was once thought that they could not take off and fly because they were so large. But despite its size, a pterosaur might have weighed under 100kg because its bones were thin and hollow for maximum strength and minimum weight.

“The Hastings area and its surroundings were a huge flood plain 140 million years ago, with rivers and large lakes, covering the whole of present-day Sussex to central France. There was no English Channel back then.”

Mr Brooks said similar pterosaur bones have been found on the Isle of Wight because the rocks there are roughly of the same age as here in 1066 Country.

But he said such fossilised bones from the flying reptiles were less common to find in Hastings and its surroundings.

He added: “What is rare about Ray’s find is the size of the bone.”

Suspended on warm air thermals, a pterosaur could glide over 50 miles with a single flap of its wings.

The vast wing size meant that it could take off from the ground by flapping, perhaps assisted by a light breeze.

However, unlike the replaceable feathers of a bird, the stretched skin of a flying reptile’s wing could have been damaged by twigs and branches.

Pterosaurs hunted for food in coastal areas and lakes where they could swoop down and skim along the water to catch fish with sharp, pointed teeth.

The beak was ideally shaped for this, with keel-shaped upper and lower jaws for stability while cutting through the water.

Pterosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago.

Hastings and District Geological Society meets once a month at Ore Community Centre in Old London Road.

Scientists debate dinosaur-bird connection

From WSUEdu, RockDoc Column: Scientists debate dinosaur-bird connection

PULLMAN, Wash. - I’ve never met Ryan Carney of Brown University, but he is my kind of man. On his arm he has tattooed the image of a feather of the dino-bird known as Archaeopteryx. The feather is a famous feature of the animal that lived in the late Jurassic in what’s now southern Germany. And that animal was either an in-between species between dinosaurs and birds or was a cousin to that transitional animal.

You can check with any nine-year-old you know about the significance of Archaeopteryx. The feathered creature lived at the close of the age of the dinos. They were biggish creatures compared to modern birds, some a foot and a half long. A few of them were preserved in the shallow sediments of what’s known as the Solnhofen limestone in Europe.

The limestone in question is very fine-grained and preserved even the delicate structure of feathers. The fossils of Archaeopteryx are each worth a king’s ransom. They are sometimes cited as one of the most important set of fossils we have that show major evolutionary transitions.

The feather debate
Archaeopteryx’s feathers may have helped keep the animal warm or may have aided it in flight – or both.

There’s been a long discussion about whether Archaeopteryx came from earlier, tree-dwelling animals that could glide downwards – a hypothesis known as the "trees-down” model. Alternatively, Archaeopteryx may have lived on the ground where it ran quickly and made long leaps, launching itself into flight in what’s called the "ground-up” model.

Virtually all of the flesh and blood Archaeopteryx animals that lived and breathed in the late Jurassic died and rotted away. But a few fell into the shallow sea around which they lived and sank to the limey bottom. The bottom-most waters of the sea helped preserve them and then cover them with more layers of the sediment that became limestone.

Unearthing the fossils
In recent times, as Germans have quarried the Solnhofen limestone, the fossils have come to light in part because the rock breaks into flat sheets, revealing the fossils that lie mostly between the rocky beds of the limestone. Once in a while, quite out of the blue, the rock breaks open to reveal Archaeopteryx in all its glory.

There’s some technical dispute about whether it’s best to think of Archaeopteryx as a dino becoming a bird or as one of the first animals really and truly at the base of the bird family tree. It’s not surprising there’s such a debate.

In the first place, the fossil record is always incomplete compared to the full complexity of animal life through geologic time. And in the second place, as birds evolved from dinosaur stock there were "gray areas” where one researcher could legitimately think of a fossil as a specialized dinosaur while another scientist might understandably emphasize the bird-like features of a particular fossil find.

The most recent technical publication I’ve seen in the journal Nature is opposed to the notion that Archaeopteryx should be called the first bird on the planet.

But it’s clear that Archaeopteryx had features of both dinosaurs and birds. It had wings and feathers, on the one hand, but it also had features like sharp teeth and a long, bony tail that made it more like a dinosaur than a modern bird.

The black feathers
What’s interesting now is the news from the tattooed Mr. Carney and some of his colleagues that at least some of the feathers sported by Archaeopteryx were black. The evidence for color comes from the microscopic examination of pigment-bearing structures that are similar to those found in modern birds.

Today’s bird feathers have what the ScienceNews website calls "rod-shaped nubbins” that contain melanin pigments.

Carney and company compared the structures found in 87 kinds of modern birds with those of Archaeopteryx as it is preserved for us in the fine-grained limestone. The researchers found the fossil dino-bird had pigment-bearing structures that are more like black ones in modern birds than like those associated with brown or gray feathers.

But despite the recent news from the realm of scientific research, the jury is still out on the overall color of Archaeopteryx.

Still, I like to think Archaeopteryx looked good in basic black, just like our crows.

British Columbia: Dinosaur bones and sharks' teeth

From SookeNewsMirror: Dinosaur bones and sharks' teeth
The Victoria Palaeontology will hold its 16th Fossil Fair on March 24-25, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. at the Swan Lake Christmas Hill Nature Sanctuary.

There will be a display of the 25 million-year-old Sooke Formation fossils from the Muir Creek area which may be of interest to the Sooke community.

The Fossil Fair will display a rich and diverse variety of ancient fossil animals and plants from the Cambrian (550 million years ago) to the end of the last Ice Age (10,000 years ago). Fossils will be displayed from Vancouver Island, other parts of British Columbia and other areas. The fossils include dinosaur bones, ammonites, trilobites, corals, mollusks, insects, giant palm leaves and microscopic fossils.

Special displays will include 70 to 80 million- year-old sea urchin fossils, sharks’ teeth and a large dinosaur leg bone from the late Cretaceous period.

The Fossil Fair is an educational experience for all age groups. The public is invited to bring in fossils for identification. Specific activities for children include a sandbox fossil dig, fossil scavenger hunt with prizes, fossil colouring and rubbings and looking through microscopes.

The Victoria Palaeontology Society cooperates with professional palaeontologists undertaking research on fossils collected by society members.

All scientifically important fossils are donated to the Royal British Columbia Museum.

Missing Evidence

Here's a plug for this fascinating website: Dinosaur of the Week. It needs to be checked out online because the author shares [animated] videos of various dinosaurs.

From Dinosaur of the Week, Armchair Paleontology Blog: Missing Evidence

As of today we have more hits this month than any other month since I started writing exclusively about dinosaurs and paleobiology.

Tupuxuara is one of the paleo-critters we discuss which is totally void of children related links on the internet. There is some talk on Dinosaur King sites, but nothing substantial which guarantees information about Tupuxuara or videos related to the animal, which is what it is, but is sad for the future generations. There are no coloring sheets either unless one would like to print out Tuomas Koivurinne's illustration used yesterday and color that, which I am sure he wouldn't mind as long as you didn't post it online or gave him ample credit. You can ask him yourself on any one of his websites (I typically talk to him through DeviantArt, but he also has a Blogger profile).

Secaucus, NJ: Become a ‘scientist’ for dinosaur park

From Hudson REporter: Become a ‘scientist’ for dinosaur park
One hundred and fifty jobs are available at Field Station: Dinosaur, a family attraction located adjacent to Laurel Hill Park in Secaucus that includes thirty life-sized animatronic dinosaurs. President and Chief Executive Officer Guy Gsell spoke to a full house in the Business Resource Center at the Secaucus Public Library on Mar. 12 about the types of job opportunities available at the park.

The outdoor attraction will debut over Memorial Day weekend, although school groups may visit earlier. From Memorial Day until the end of the school year, they are only open on the weekends. After school lets out the park will open rain or shine every day until Labor Day. After Labor Day the park returns to a weekend schedule for the public.

The park targets kids ages 3 to 11 and is more like a zoo with dinosaurs than an amusement attraction. Children are treated as scientists on an expedition. They get credentials instead of tickets upon arrival.

The park includes a Dinosaur Dig Site, games like Dinosaur “Family Feud,” family Olympics, and workshops.

“Our mission is to teach children and families important lessons about our world today using the story and the science of dinosaurs,” said Gsell. “We want to make sure that kids are learning something that is relevant to their lives.”

Gsell said educational themes may address climate change, or the link between dinosaurs and birds, for example.

Job involves learning

A countywide job fair will be held on Apr. 13 and 14 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

“You will have to learn a lot about dinosaurs,” said Gsell in regard to the job positions. He said the New Jersey State Museum will provide training to new employees, especially so they can learn dinosaur names like Argentinasaurus and Dilophosaurus.

Gsell said that the park is experience is a personal one. Kids may already know the names of 12 dinosaurs when coming in to the park, but he also expects them to learn the names of five employees by the time they leave. Employees will wear zookeeper-type uniforms and will also play the role of scientist as they perform their duties.

Gsell said they are looking for very friendly, personable people who are eager to learn and teach. “At our place, everyone is a scientist,” said Gsell.

Hudson County residents get priority over outside applicants.

__________

“At our place, everyone is a scientist.” – Guy Gsell

___________

Part-time and summer work

The people who turned out for the job fair in Secaucus included many high school students and a mix of local residents who sought part-time jobs. Many students were interested in finding their first job experience like 16-year-old Hailey Graf, a sophomore at Secaucus High School.

“I like science,” said Graf. She said she wanted a sense of responsibility and independence in her first job.

Friend Kelsey Mitchell, 16, was looking for a job that would last through the summer. “It looks really cool,” said Mitchell about the Field Station job opportunities.

Sixteen-year-old Andrew Wortman’s favorite dinosaur is the Velociraptor. “I find them interesting,” he said. He is trying to save money for end-of-summer trips with local Boy Scouts troop 222.

Khevna Bhavsar and her father-in-law, Bharat Bhavsar, were both looking for part-time work. Khevna has two children and sought an opportunity that would allow her to balance her stay-at-home mom duties.

Field Station: Dinosaur is currently accepting applications and will make hiring decisions after the next job fair. Applicants must be 16 years or older. For more info, visit: http://fieldstationdinosaurs.com.

School groups begin arriving mid-may. The park officially opens Memorial Day weekend.

Dinosaur Exhibit in Southern MN

From KIMT.com: Dinosaur Exhibit in Southern MN
ROCHESTER, MN - Dinosaurs have been extinct for millions of years, but our fascination with them lives on.

And now some larger than life fossils are visiting our area. The Twilight of the Triceratops exhibit at Quarry Hill Nature Center showcases some of the last dinosaurs to roam the earth before their mass extinction.

The Hall family spent the afternoon traveling back in time 65 million years to the age when dinosaurs walked the earth.

"We have five kids and they've all been intrigued with dinosaurs at times," said Jennifer Hall.

The Halls are just some of the many folks who flocked to Quarry Hill Nature Center in Rochester to get up close to what remains of these mysterious creatures.

"We brought in kind of the last of the dinosaurs, the ones that were there at the end of their time, hence the name twilight," said Ryan Leveque with Quarry Hill.

The display features a variety of different fossils, but it's the giant triceratops that is the star of the show.

"Triceratops are, you know, widely recognizable by everyone. So it was kind of an easy choice for the main draw," said Leveque.

Kelsey the triceratops was discovered in Wyoming. And her bones hold the key to many unanswered questions.

"The bones on Kelsey were well preserved as far as the curvature and the shape, and so it gives scientists a better idea of how her legs had maybe fit in and supported her under her body," said Leveque.

Kelsey and company are creating quite the buzz, drawing in folks of all ages.

"The kids really enjoy digging in the tables and for adults there's a lot of great information," said Leveque.

There's still time to check out the exhibit. It's open until April 8th. But after that, it will also be extinct.

Viewing hours for the exhibit are Monday through Friday from 2:00pm -5:00pm, Saturday from 9:00am - 5:00pm and Sunday from noon - 5:00pm.

Johnstown, NY: Building Dinosaurs

From the Post-Journal: Building Dinosaurs
Fletcher Elementary School first-graders Mackenzie Cregan and Jaimen Johnson showed off their dinosaur projects in Teresina Isabella's classroom. All first-graders completed a dinosaur unit in class including writing information books with cool facts, creating fossils and reading many non-fiction and fiction books on dinosaurs. Each class also created different crafts such as dinosaur puppets. As a culminating event, which was attended by hundreds of families and friends, students sang songs and recited poems about dinosaurs. The students then showed off all their hard work to their families.

New dinosaur species found in drawer

From CBCNews: New dinosaur species found in drawer
A University of Windsor graduate discovered a new species of dinosaur after he pieced together fossils that had been sitting in a drawer since the 1950s.

Ian Morrison works in the paleontology department at the Royal Ontario Museum. The dinosaur was named in his honour.

Gryphoceratops morrisoni is the smallest adult horned dinosaur in North America.

An expedition from the Royal Ontario Museum discovered lower right jaw fragments of the dinosaur in the fossil beds of southern Alberta in 1950.

David Evans, associate curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Royal Ontario Museum, and his colleague, Michael Ryan, tried to piece it together for six to eight years, and eventually gave up.

"I recognized this little jaw but it was in a bunch of little pieces, too many and too incomplete to put together,” Evans said.

So they languished in the corner of a collection drawer until Evans pulled them out and let Morrison give it a try.

“Within an hour, Ian had the whole thing together,” Evans said. “It was those pieces that allowed us to notice a bunch of distinctive features of the jaw and clinched the fact that it was very different from what we had before.”

Morrison said he has always been good at putting pieces together.

“I majored in sculpture at the University of Windsor, and the training I received in fabricating three-dimensional objects translates well into the preparation and display of dinosaur bones,” Morrison said. “That day, the puzzle turned out to be just as important scientifically as it was interesting to solve.”

Evans said many of the best technicians in his field come from arts backgrounds.

“They are able to picture things in three dimensions, and they are perfectionists,” he said.

Morrison said that having a dinosaur named after him is a nice pat on the back.

“I’m honoured to have my work for the Royal Ontario Museum acknowledged in such a unique way,” he said.

Rodent-like Vegan Mammals Thrived with Dinosaurs: Study

From International Business Times: Rodent-like Vegan Mammals Thrived with Dinosaurs: Study
For decades, researchers believed that mammals could not have thrived until the dinosaurs went extinct. Recent research, however, conducted by evolutionary biologist Dr. Alistair Evans, of Monash University in Melbourne, and colleagues, tends to suggest otherwise. The new study indicates that at least one group of ancient mammals thrived and started expanding 20 million years before the dinosaurs died.

closer look at ancient mammal teeth suggests that mammals were able to expand because they discovered a food source not consumed by others, and not because the dinosaur extinction made room for them. When the dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago, these mammals continued to prosper.

The most common mammals before dinosaurs disappeared off the face of the earth, were multituberculates, named after their teeth. “Many of the tuberculates have very bumpy teeth and each of the bumps is called a tuberculate,” said Evans. Multituberculates managed to thrive partly because they developed numerous tubercules on their back teeth, allowing them to feed largely on angiosperms. “These mammals were able to radiate in terms of numbers of species, body size and shapes of their teeth, which influenced what they ate,” said UW paleontologist Gregory Wilson, the lead author of a paper documenting the research.

About 170 million years ago, these multituberculates were roughly the size of a mouse, but when angiosperms started to appear some 140 million years ago, the small mammals increased in body size, eventually reaching the size of a beaver.

Tapping fossil collections worldwide, scientists examined teeth from 41 multituberculate species. Using laser and CT – computer tomography – scans they created high resolution 3-D images of the teeth. Some multituberculates developed very complex teeth in the back of the mouth, with as many as 348 tubercules per teeth row, which made them ideal for crushing plant material such as angiosperms. Meanwhile, the teeth toward the front of the mouth were less prominent, but sharp and blade-like.

“If you look at the complexity of teeth, it will tell you information about the diet. Multituberculates seem to be developing more cusps on their back teeth, and the blade-like tooth at the front is becoming less important as they develop these bumps to break down plant material,” added Wilson.

Multituberculates continued to thrive long after the dinosaur extinction, but other mammals, particularly primates, ungulates and rodents, gained advantage and ultimately drove multituberculates extinct about 34 million years ago.

Two New Species of Horned Dinosaur Named

From Science Daily: Two New Species of Horned Dinosaur Named
ScienceDaily (Mar. 12, 2012) — Two new horned dinosaurs have been named based on fossils collected from Alberta, Canada. The new species, Unescopceratops koppelhusae and Gryphoceratops morrisoni, are from the Leptoceratopsidae family of horned dinosaurs. The herbivores lived during the Late Cretaceous period between 75 to 83 million years ago. The specimens are described in research published in the Jan. 24, 2012, online issue of the journal Cretaceous Research.

"These dinosaurs fill important gaps in the evolutionary history of small-bodied horned dinosaurs that lack the large horns and frills of relatives like Triceratops from North America," said Michael Ryan, Ph.D., curator of vertebrate paleontology at The Cleveland Museum of Natural History, lead author on the research. "Although horned dinosaurs originated in Asia, our analysis suggests that leptoceratopsids radiated to North America and diversified here, since the new species, Gryphoceratops, is the earliest record of the group on this continent."

Unescoceratops koppelhusae lived approximately 75 million years ago. It measured about one to two meters (6.5 feet) in length and weighed less than 91 kilograms (200 pounds). It had a short frill extending from behind its head but did not have ornamentation on its skull. It had a parrot-like beak. Its teeth were lower and rounder than those of any other leptoceratopsid. In addition, its hatchet-shaped jaw had a distinct portion of bone that projected below the jaw like a small chin.

The lower left jaw fragment of Unescoceratops was discovered in 1995 in Dinosaur Provincial Park, a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site by Philip Currie, Ph.D., now of the University of Alberta. Originally described in 1998 by Ryan and Currie, the dinosaur was referred to as Leptoceratops. Subsequent research by Ryan and David Evans, Ph.D., of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada, determined the specimen was a new genus and species. The genus is named to honor the UNESCO World Heritage Site designation for the locality where the specimen was found and from the Greek "ceratops," which means "horned face." The species is named for Eva Koppelhus, Ph.D., a palynologist at the University of Alberta and wife of Currie.

Gryphoceratops morrisoni lived about 83 million years ago. It had a shorter and deeper jaw shape than any other leptoceratopsid. Researchers believe the individual was a full-grown adult. Based on unique characteristics of the jaw and its size, the researchers believe that Gryphoceratops was an adult that did not exceed one-half meter in length. This means it is the smallest adult-sized horned dinosaur in North America and one of the smallest adult-sized plant-eating dinosaurs known.

Lower right jaw fragments of Gryphoceratops were discovered in southern Alberta in 1950 by Levi Sternberg while he worked for the Royal Ontario Museum. The genus is named for "Gryphon," a mythological Greek figure with the body of a lion and the head of an eagle, which is a reference to the animal's beaked face. The species name honors Ian Morrison, a Royal Ontario Museum technician, who discovered how the bones fit together.

Second author Evans, associate curator of vertebrate palaeontology at the Royal Ontario Museum and assistant professor at the University of Toronto, said, "Small-bodied dinosaurs are typically poorly represented in the fossil record, which is why fragmentary remains like these new leptoceratopsids can make a big contribution to our understanding of dinosaur ecology and evolution."

Contributing authors are Philip Currie, Ph.D., of the University of Alberta; Caleb Brown of the University of Toronto; and Don Brinkman, Ph.D., of the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology.

First dinosaur discovered in Spain is younger than believed

From Fox News: First dinosaur discovered in Spain is younger than believed
The first dinosaur ever found in Spain is not as old as paleontologists had believed — though at 130 million years old, the long-necked creature is no spring chicken.

The dinosaur, Aragosaurus ischiaticus, was originally discovered in 1987. But the fossil was difficult to date. Now, researchers at the University of Zaragoza's Aragon Research Institute of Environmental Sciences have found the sauropod's age was estimated at 15 million years too old. The age-shaving results suggest the dinosaur was an ancestor of the enormous Titanosauriforms, a group that includes the largest dinosaurs to ever live.

The new age estimate puts the dinosaur in the Hauterivian age between 136 million and 130 million years ago, the researchers reported March 12 in the journal Geological Magazine.

"This is the only dinosaur of this period found in Spain and is also the most intact in Europe," study author José Ignacio Canudo of the University of Zaragoza said in a statement. "It can be categorized amongst the well-known sauropods of the Jurassic-Cretaceous transition (135 million years ago), the most abundant species during the Barremian age (116 million years ago). As this group has been studied the least, the Aragosaurus fills the gap."

To accurately date the Aragosaurus specimen, Canudo and his colleagues conducted fieldwork at the site of the find. They used fossil pollen found in the same layers of sediment as the Aragosaurus to pinpoint the date. By knowing the evolutionary history and age of the plants that released that pollen, the researchers can estimate the ages of fossils found in the same layers.

The more accurate date helps flesh out the sauropod family tree, the researchers reported. Aragosaurus fills a gap in fossil knowledge during the shift from the Jurassic to the Cretaceous period, Canudo said.

A Dinosaur’s Pterosaur Lunch

From The Smithsonian Dinosaur Tracking blog: A Dinosaur’s Pterosaur Lunch

Though only about the size of a turkey, Velociraptor still looked like a formidable predator. With snatching hands, a jaw set with recurved teeth and, of course, a retractable claw on each foot, almost every end of this dinosaur was sharp. But what did this well-equipped Cretaceous killer actually eat?

One of the prime candidates for a Velociraptor entree has been the small horned dinosaur Protoceratops. A truly spectacular fossil cemented the connection between these dinosaurs. In 1971, a Polish-Mongolian expedition to the Gobi Desert found “fighting dinosaurs“—a Velociraptor and Protoceratops preserved in the throes of fatal combat. While the Velociraptor had kicked its deadly foot claw into the neck of the Protoceratops, the little ceratopsian had crushed the right arm of the predator, and the two remained locked together in death. The trouble is that we can’t know why these two dinosaurs were fighting. Was the Velociraptor trying to hunt the Protoceratops? Or was the little predator itself attacked by a territorial Protoceratops? That the dinosaurs battled each other is obvious, but the reason for their combat remains a mystery.

But a recently described fossil confirmed that Velociraptor or a very similar dinosaur ate Protoceratops flesh. In 2010, paleontologist Dave Hone and co-authors reported a set of Protoceratops bones that had been scratched and scored by the teeth of a small predatory dinosaur. How the horned dinosaur died was unclear, but the toothmarks indicated that the carcass had almost been entirely stripped by the time the carnivorous dinosaur came along to pick off the remaining scraps. Since Velociraptor shared the same habitat and was of the right size to leave the bite marks, the dinosaur is a good candidate for being the scavenger.

Another fossil provides an even closer connection between Velociraptor and its prey. In a paper to be published in Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, Hone and co-authors Takanobu Tsuihiji, MahitoWatabe and Khishigjaw Tsogtbaatr describe part of a Velociraptor meal preserved inside the dinosaur’s body cavity. Represented by a single bone, the gut contents show the dinosaur had fed upon a pterosaur.

The broken pterosaur bone was probably inside the dinosaur’s stomach when it died. How that bone found its way into the Velociraptor digestive system is another matter. Based on the anatomy of the bone and the pterosaurs that were around at the time, Hone and colleagues hypothesize that the ingested pterosaur was an azhdarchid, one of the long-legged, long-necked pterosaurs that included the largest flying animals of all time.

This particular pterosaur was not a giant by pterosaur standards—Hone and colleagues estimate that the animal probably had a wingspan over six feet across and weighed more than 19 pounds. But it would have been large compared to the relatively small Velociraptor that consumed it. This would have made the sharp-beaked pterosaur “a difficult, and probably even dangerous, target [for] a young dromaeosaur,” Hone and co-authors suggest, and therefore “unless the pterosaur was already ill, infirm or injured, it seems unlikely that this would be a case of predation.” And the fact that the dinosaur consumed a large bone further suggests this might have been another instance of Velociraptor scavenging. If the pterosaur carcass was fresh, the Velociraptor probably would have consumed the available soft tissues first. The fact that the dinosaur ate bone may be an indication that the pterosaur had been picked over and there was only a little meat left clinging to the carcass.

This isn’t the first time evidence of small dromaeosaurs scavenging on pterosaurs has been found. In 1995, paleontologists Philip Currie and Aase Roland Jacobsen reported a partial skeleton of an azhdarchid pterosaur that had been bitten by a small predatory dinosaur. A tooth embedded in the skeleton identified the scavenger as Saurornitholestes, a dromaeosaurid cousin of Velociraptor from Cretaceous North America.

Although Velociraptor is often celebrated as a vicious and cunning predator, the accumulating evidence shows that the dinosaur wasn’t above scavenging. This isn’t surprising. Even highly active predators will regularly scavenge if the opportunity arises. And while I consider the ballyhooed argument over whether Tyrannosaurus rex was primarily a hunter or scavenger to be dead and buried—the tyrant dinosaur was certainly both hunter and scavenger—it is worth noting that even small, apparently highly predaceous dinosaurs at least occasionally scavenged. In outlining his case for “Tyrannosaurus the scavenger,” paleontologist Jack Horner pointed to Velociraptor as the epitome of what a predatory dinosaur should look like. Yet this new paper, as well as other recently reported indications of dinosaur hunting and scavenging, underscores the fact that the hunting-scavenging dichotomy is too narrow a view on nature. As Hone and colleagues wrote near the beginning of their paper, many carnivores hunt and scavenge. The trick is figuring out which type of flesh-acquisition behavior was more important to a particular species.

Frustratingly, though, we’re more likely to find evidence of dinosaur scavenging than active predation. Relatively small predators like Velociraptor, which may have specialized on even smaller prey, are especially troublesome in this regard. Unless someone is lucky enough to find a small mammal, dinosaur, or other creature in the gut contents of Velociraptor, we may never know what this dinosaur primarily hunted. When predatory dinosaurs wrenched tattered bits of flesh from denuded carcasses, though, they often left tell-tale signs of damage behind, and these traces are more likely to be preserved than are gut contents. Despite its celebrity, we are still just beginning to put together a picture of how Velociraptor hunted and fed.

For more details on the pterosaur-eating Velociraptor, including some excellent art by Brett Booth, visit Dave Hone’s blog Archosaur Musings.

References:

Currie, P., & Jacobsen, A. (1995). An azhdarchid pterosaur eaten by a velociraptorine theropod Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, 32 (7), 922-925 DOI: 10.1139/e95-077

Fowler, D., Freedman, E., Scannella, J., & Kambic, R. (2011). The Predatory Ecology of Deinonychus and the Origin of Flapping in Birds PLoS ONE, 6 (12) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0028964

Hone, D., Choiniere, J., Sullivan, C., Xu, X., Pittman, M., & Tan, Q. (2010). New evidence for a trophic relationship between the dinosaurs Velociraptor and Protoceratops Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 291 (3-4), 488-492 DOI: 10.1016/j.palaeo.2010.03.028

Hone, D., Tsuihiji, T., Watabe, M., Tsogtbaatr, K. (2012). Pterosaurs as a food source for small dromaeosaurs Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology : 10.1016/j.palaeo.2012.02.021

MD: Dinosaurs invade Montpelier Mansion in new exhibit

From Gazette.net: Dinosaurs invade Montpelier Mansion in new exhibit
At the end of Mid-Atlantic Boulevard in South Laurel, there’s a piece of land that’s seen a lot of history — and prehistory.

Now the Laurel Dinosaur Park, the land once was part of the Snowden family’s estate and mined for iron ore in the 19th century. In an exhibit that opened Saturday and runs through April 29, the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission has put some of the most interesting things dug up at the Dinosaur Park on display in Montpelier Mansion, once the Snowden family home.

The exhibit, Dinosaurs Invade the Mansion!, outlines the connection between the home-turned-museum and the fossils discovered at the park.

“It’s important for people to know that Dinosaur Park is really unique,” said Don Creveling, head of the archaeology at M-NCPPC. “It’s one of the only places on the East Coast with such a rich deposit of fossils so accessible.”

Fossils and information about the dinosaurs that made them are on display at the museum, including teeth from the long-necked sauropod Astrodon johnstoni, Maryland’s state dinosaur, and numerous bone fragments from other prehistoric creatures from the Cretaceous Period.

The carriage house on the property also is open for visitors and includes hands-on activities such as dinosaur art projects, name-your-own-dino activities and wooden dinosaur skeleton visitors can put together.

The exhibit also lists the names of more than 350 people who have unearthed fossils from the park.

The same forces of nature — floods on the many rivers and wetlands that wound through prehistoric Laurel — that trapped plant and animal matter in the area 110 million years ago also made the ground iron-rich, and the Snowdens made their fortune from the iron ore deposits, Creveling said.

“There’s a connection with the iron industry because it was in the iron mines where dinosaurs were first found,” Creveling said.

In 1858, miners discovered the first fossils in open pit mines about half a mile south of where the dinosaur park now is located. For more than 150 years, fossils have been found regularly in the area.

Opened in October 2009, the park now sees about 100 visitors at each of its open house events, which are conducted on the first and third Saturdays of each month, Creveling said.

After coming to the museum with his family to check out the dinosaur exhibit, David Wellington of Frederick said they would have to arrange a trip to the Dinosaur Park.

“I think it’s cool how they’re preserved,” said Wellington’s son, Caden, 11. He and his brother, Bryce, 7, said they would like to find dinosaur fossils.

Creveling hopes to see more families like the Wellingtons come out to the park to help paleontologists search the site for fossils, and he is working to raise funds to add amenities to the site, including a pavilion shelter, a storage shed for tools and sluiceway with running water so that visitors can more easily search through the clay for fossils.

Creveling said he hopes to see the project finished in the next year.

Yale paleontologists settle dinosaur debate: Triceratops lived!

From Register Center: Yale paleontologists settle dinosaur debate: Triceratops lived!
NEW HAVEN — Nicholas Longrich isn’t a home wrecker, but he recently had occasion to break up a family of dinosaurs.

It seems there had been some controversy over the dinosaur Triceratops, a large, horned animal that roamed the western part of North America roughly 65 million years ago. Paleontologists in Montana had published findings in 2010, saying that Triceratops was merely a younger version of another horned dinosaur, Torosaurus.

But Longrich and other Yale University paleontologists say they’ve proven otherwise. Their year-long study, recently published in the journal PLoS ONE, concludes that Triceratops is a separate animal from Torosaurus ‑ something scientists had believed prior to the Montana study.

“We had a lot of evidence going into this, and it became more and more clear as we went along,” explains Longrich, a postdoctoral fellow in Yale’s department of geology and geophysics.

Triceratops was a four-legged creature thought to be nearly 10 feet tall and 26 to 30 feet long. Its name means “three-horned face,” and one of its distinct features was a curved, broad piece of bone called a frill.

Paleontologists have discovered about 100 Triceratops skulls, according to Daniel Field, a Yale graduate student who worked with Longrich on the study. Some of the most scientifically significant skulls are part of the collection at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History.

Longrich and Field took measurements and collected data on about 35 Triceratops and Torosaurus skulls, including visits to see specimens in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.

The fossil record, they say, indicates there are mature specimens of Triceratops and immature specimens of Torosaurus, as well as physical differences in the frill between the two animals. In addition, the Yale paleontologists found no examples of intermediate fossils showing how Triceratops’ appearance might change to look more like a Torosaurus.

“We’re pretty confident in our conclusions,” Field says. “It gives us a better idea of how diverse the dinosaur community was in North America. It looks like rather than only one large, horned dinosaur species in North America at that time, we had two.”

Longrich is quick to point out that the idea of one dinosaur species changing its physical appearance over time is “not so far-fetched. You can get some major changes. But you’d see a growth trajectory. You’d see intermediate steps.”

One of the challenges in paleontology going forward will be finding a better way to gauge the amount of physical variation within a species, Longrich adds. Such variation becomes obvious after you’ve viewed enough dinosaur skulls.

“They’re like snowflakes,” Longrich says. “Every single one is different.”

Dinosaur bones identified as new species for Mont.

Bozeman Daily Chronicle: Dinosaur bones identified as new species for Mont.
A Montana State University graduate student at the Museum of the Rockies has identified dinosaur bones collected in 1985 in central Montana as a Titanasaur.

Cary Woodruff tells KECI-TV (http://bit.ly/xcaK5g) that the tail bones belong to a special group of long-necked dinosaurs called sauropods.

Researchers discovered the bones nearly three decades ago in Wheatland County.

MSU Grad Student Discovers First Of Its Kind Dino In Montana
BOZEMAN, Mont. -- An MSU graduate student at the Museum of the Rockies has identified a dinosaur that's the first of its kind in Montana.

Cary Woodruff came across tail bones collected back in 1985 in Wheatland county last year and determined they were from a Titanasaur.

Woodruff says the dinosaur is from a special group called sauropods, or long neck dinosaurs and before now, they weren't believed to have been in the northern part of the country during the that time period.

Woodruff says he hopes this new discoveries will encourage people to look for more Titanasaur bones in Montana.

"Hopefully, people will go back and find, not only more of this animal but maybe more of other Titanasaurs and just keep an eye out for material this size so we can start to get a better picture of what this animal and similar animals from Montana were like," says Woodruff.

Headlines for the Flea story

It's kind of funny to see the "attention-grabbing" headlines that the papers have used for this story:

Massive Jurassic fleas fed on dinosaurs
The State Column
Massive Jurassic fleas snacked on dinosaurs, according to a study published in the journal Nature Wednesday. The massive Jurassic fleas measured approximately one inch long, researchers reveal. “That's a beast,” said Michael Engel, one of the study's ...

and

Giant Fleas Feasted on Dinosaur Blood, Scientists Say
International Business Times
By Amir Khan: Subscribe to Amir's RSS feed Giant fleas feasted on dinosaur blood in the Jurassic era, according to a new study. At nearly 1 inch (2.5 cm) long, these bloodsuckers were eight times larger than their modern-day counterparts.

and

International Business Times
Inch-long Jurassic fleas slurped feathered dinosaur blood
SlashGear
Scientists have discovered fossils of several large fleas measuring about inch-long that are thought to have fed on feathered dinosaurs back in the Jurassic period. The fossils of the giant fleas were unearthed at two separate sites in China.

Massive Jurassic fleas feasted on dinosaurs

From The State Column: Massive Jurassic fleas feasted on dinosaurs
Massive Jurassic fleas snacked on dinosaurs, according to a study published in the journal Nature Wednesday. The massive Jurassic fleas measured approximately one inch long, researchers reveal.

“That’s a beast,” said Michael Engel, one of the study’s authors and a palaeoentomologist at the University of Kansas, according to The Associated Press. “It was a big critter. I can’t even imagine coming home and finding my miniature schnauzer with one or more of these things crawling around on it,” Mr. Engel added.

The massive Jurassic fleas were many times bigger than modern day fleas. While the ancient fleas measured nearly an inch long, modern day fleas are typically 2-3 millimeters, according to How It Works Magazine.

Modern day fleas have a variety of hosts from which to choose. Cat, dog and human fleas prefer the blood of their respective hosts, although these types of fleas can also be found sucking the blood of other mammals. The massive Jurassic flea had a much larger host, but the physical makeup of its mouthparts gave it the perfect set of tools for dining on the blood of dinosaurs.

The team of researchers, led by Andre Nel, from the Museum of Natural History in Paris, discovered fossils of the massive fleas from the Middle Jurassic and Early Cretaceous periods in Daohugou, northeast China.

By carefully studying the physical features of the massive Jurassic fleas, researchers were able to determine that their primary meal was dinosaur blood. The physical features of modern day fleas are better designed for feeding on the blood of birds and mammals.

“The mouthparts are certainly overkill for piercing the hides of early mammals and birds,” Mr. Engel told Nature, according to The Register. “It really appears as though they were specialised for working their way into some heavy hides, such as those on dinosaurs,” he added.

“They exhibit many defining features of fleas but retain primitive traits such as non-jumping hindlegs,” the study’s authors wrote in “Diverse transitional giant fleas from the Mesozoic era of China,” which was accepted by Nature on January 6th.

The non-jumping hindlegs would have made it a little more difficult for the massive Jurassic fleas to attach to their hosts, theorized George Poinar, a palaeoentomologist at Oregon State University. The fleas “would have to crawl or run to find a host,” Mr. Poinar argued, according to Nature. Mr. Poinar added that “they could have attacked dinosaurs or possibly pterosaurs.”

“All have stout and elongate sucking siphons for piercing the hides of their hosts, implying that these fleas may be rooted among the pollinating ‘long siphonate’ scorpionflies of the Mesozoic,” the authors added.

The researchers believe that the massive Jurassic fleas transitioned from dinosaurs to birds and mammals later in the Cenozoic era.

T. Rex Bite Strongest Ever on Land—Ten Times Greater Than Gator's

From National Geographic Daily News: T. Rex Bite Strongest Ever on Land—Ten Times Greater Than Gator's
Once the largest known carnivore on land, Tyrannosaurus rex also had the most powerful bite of any terrestrial animal of any time period, a new study suggests.

Much conventional wisdom about the world's most famous dinosaur species has been called into question in recent years—for instance, whether the 40-foot-long (12-meter-long) T. rex species could run or only plod along.

Likewise, some have contended that the supposedly mighty predator actually had a modest bite, limiting T. rex to scavenging.

To see how forcefully T. rex could bite, biomechanicists involved in the new study used laser scanners to digitize juvenile and adult T. rex skulls. The team then used computer models to reconstruct the dinosaur's jaw muscles and analyze bite performance.

The models suggest that an adult T. rex was capable of a maximum bite force of 35,000 to 57,000 newtons at its back teeth. That's more than four times higher than past estimates and ten times as forceful as the bite of a modern alligator.

T. rex, which went extinct about 65 million years ago, "probably lives up to its reputation as a ferocious biter," concluded study leader Karl Bates, a computational anatomist at the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom.

T. Rex No Match for Megatooth?
Although T. rex may have possessed the most powerful bite of any land animal, it apparently paled in comparison to that of prehistoric megalodon—literally "megatooth"—sharks, which may have grown to lengths of more than 50 feet (16 meters) and weighed up to 30 times more than the largest great white.

Past megalodon research suggests these giant marine predators, which first appeared around 16 million years ago, could chomp with more than three times the force of T. rex, based on the new figures.

The bite force of a megalodon—"just because it was so much larger-bodied—would have been bigger," Bates said.

So T. rex could have bitten with ten times the force of an alligator. But would it have?

Answering that question would require an estimate of how much stress T. rex's skull could take, Bates said—to help pinpoint just how forcefully the predator could have bitten down with without hurting itself.

The T. rex bite study will be published online February 29 in the journal Biology Letters.

Dinosaur forests mapped

From PhyOrg: Dinosaur forests mapped

High temperatures and possibly more atmospheric carbon dioxide caused forests to extend much closer to the poles and grow almost twice as fast as they do today.

The findings have implications for understanding the long-term effects of global warming.

Scientists at Royal Holloway, University of London, plotted the maps after creating a database of more than two thousand fossilised forest sites from the Cretaceous period, when dinosaurs were at their peak.

"Our research shows that weird monkey puzzle forests covered most of the planet, especially in the steamy tropics. At mid-latitudes there were dry cypress woodlands, and near the North Pole it was mostly pines," said Emiliano Peralta-Medina, who led the study.

At that time the humid tropics extended over a wider area than now, and temperate climates – like the UK's – reached much closer to the poles, which had more tree cover than ice.

It seems though, that just before the dinosaurs went extinct the forests changed as angiosperms – flowering plants – made an appearance.

"Flowering trees similar to present-day magnolias took off, bringing color and scent to the world for the first time," says Peralta-Medina.

The angiosperms gradually took over habitats previously dominated by the conifers, until by the end of the Cretaceous they are the most common tree species.

As well as mapping the fossil forests, the team gathered measurements of tree rings – which indicate annual growth rate – from samples of fossil trees and from earlier studies.

They found that Cretaceous trees grew twice as fast as their modern counterparts, particularly nearer to the poles.

"Some fossil trees from Antarctica had rings more than two millimetres wide on average. Such a rate of growth is usually only seen in trees growing in temperate climates. It tells us that, during the age of the dinosaurs, polar regions had a climate similar to Britain today," explains co-author Dr. Howard Falcon-Lang.

The reason for this baking hot climate seems to have been extremely high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere - at least 1000 parts per million (ppm) compared to 393 ppm today.

"If carbon dioxide concentrations continue to rise unabated, we will hit Cretaceous levels in less than 250 years," explains Falcon-Lang. "If that happens, we could see forests return to Antarctica."

"It's unlikely that dinosaurs will be making a comeback," he added.

The findings are published today in Geology.

More information: Peralta-Medina, E, Falcon-Lang, HJ, 2012. Cretaceous forest composition and productivity inferred from a global fossil wood database. Geology 40(3) doi: 10.1130/G32733.1

Provided by PlanetEarth Online (news : web)

This story is republished courtesy of Planet Earth online, a free, companion website to the award-winning magazine Planet Earth published and funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).