photos of the remains of dinosaurs image

Friday, April 29, 2011




For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.

Scientists Uncover Mummified Dinosaur remains


My heart skipped a beat when I saw that pic of its scales. That's so incredible, think of the new B movie possibilities!


I found this pic of another dinosaur mummy from American Museum of Natural History. From what I am gathering, "Dakota" seems like an even better find.


For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.

Dinosaur hunter unearths nearly 50 new species in Britain's own Jurassic Park



Some 48 new prehistoric species have been unearthed by a British expert from Britain's own Jurassic Park, including dinosaurs similar to the deadly velociraptor and giant flying pterosaurs.

Palaeontologists
have long flocked to this country which is thought to be one of the top five in the world for concentrations of dinosaurs remains.

The high number is thought to be as a result of Britain's position as a land bridge between various continents more than 130 million years ago.

But even so the findings of Dr Steve Sweetman, of Portsmouth University, remain remarkable, especially as they have been achieved in less than four years.

Dr Sweetman's haul includes eight dinosaurs, six mammals and 15 different types of lizard all taken from cliffs of the Isle of Wight, which are part of what has been dubbed the Jurassic coast.

Highlights include the remains of a creature similar to a giant velociraptor - similar in size to those portrayed in the film Jurassic Park - and pterosaurs as well as long-necked Sauropods like the massive Brachiosaurus, also seen in the movie.

For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.





Bowman, Dinosauer dig

Thursday, April 28, 2011









































Dinosaur dig conducted by Pioneer Trails Regional Museum in Bowman.
Photographer:North Dakota Tourism
Contact Name:Scooter Pursley
Address:1600 East Century Ave.
City:Bismarck
State:North Dakota
Zip:58502
Phone:701-328-2874
Email:jpursley@nd.gov
URL:www.ndtourism.com
Downloads:10


For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.





Things You Don't Want to Miss















Apatosaurus Femur
This is a life-size replica of a leg bone that helped carry one of the largest land animals ever to walk the earth. Weighing up to 25 tons, this plant-eating, long-necked dinosaur lived 150 million years ago in the western United States and reached a length of 69 feet!
Stegosaurus Plate
This replica allows visitors to feel all of the bumps and grooves on a Stegosaurus' plate. The plate belonged to a 30 foot, 2 ton animal that lived about 150 million years ago. There is some debate about the primary function of Stegosaurus' plates, but they were most likely an early form of climate control, allowing the large plant eater to regulate temperature. Undoubtedly they also provided some defense and may have attracted potential mates.

Dinosaur Dig
With goggles in place and brush in hand, children are transformed into junior paleontologists, as they excavate replicas of dinosaur skeletons at this simulated excavation site. Nearby signs help visitors identify the bones they uncover.
Dino Den
A cozy spot to play with dinosaur puppets and figures, read picture books, and piece together puzzles.


For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.





Baisch's Dinosaur Digs






Take home dinosaur fossils, petrified wood, colorful rocks and precious memories from a day in the Eastern Montana badlands. Play paleontologist while you hunt for and excavate triceratops, edmontosaurus, and the elusive T-rex.

Baisch’s Dinosaur Digs, LLC, conducts paleontological day trips on a privately owned ranch, within view of Makoshika State Park, and just a few miles from the town of Glendive. Much of the ranch is composed of the highly eroded gumbo of the badlands that is rich in fossil. Since dinosaur bone begins to deteriorate within a few years of being exposed to the air, there is the constant quest to find and preserve fossils before nature turns them to sand. We invite you to come experience the unique beauty of the Hell Creek geological formations and get a little Montana dirt under your nails. Trek through landscape that even though it is composed of dissected sediments that have recorded Earth’s history, brings to mind visions of Mars.

Our experienced guides will show you what to look for, how to excavate fossils if you find any and how to cast or prepare it. We will supply the needed tools and supplies for collecting. With a few exceptions, we will generally allow you to keep the fossils that you find.

For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.

Dino hunts net rare raptor teeth

Wednesday, April 27, 2011





Seven fossil dinosaur teeth unearthed on the Isle of Wight belong to raptors - the predatory dinosaurs made famous by the film Jurassic Park.

The teeth represent only the second example of velociraptorines in the UK and suggest the animals from which they came were surprisingly large.

"It would have been a fairly fearsome beast, I think," said Steven Sweetman of the University of Portsmouth.

The finds are described in an upcoming issue of Cretaceous Research.

They date to the Early Cretaceous Period about 125 million years ago.

The velociraptorines were slender, opportunistic predators that are believed to have hunted in packs. They possessed a characteristic sickle-like toe claw which was used for slicing open and disembowelling prey.

They term velociraptorine refers to a group of dinosaurs that resemble the deadly velociraptors, depicted in Steven Spielberg's 1993 film Jurassic Park.

Mr Sweetman, a postgraduate student at Portsmouth University, found the first tooth in 1972. Since then he has collected three more. A further three teeth came from a private collector.

They come from fossil beds in the south-west of the island and belong to the Wessex Formation which is in turn a sub-division of a much larger formation known as the Wealden.

Raptor rapture

Six of the specimens are the property of the Isle of Wight's Dinosaur Isle museum in Sandown.

"They were always predicted to have been in the fauna but have never been found before," he said.

Based on the size of the teeth, Mr Sweetman believes the beast would have been similar in size to Utahraptor, a dromaeosaur which grew up to 6.5m in length and about 2m tall. But he added that the beast could equally have been of a modest size and just had large teeth.

In Early Cretaceous times, the location where the teeth were found was a low-lying river floodplain bounded by a valley. The teeth were found in plant debris beds, the result of charred vegetation and animal matter from a wildfire being transported by a rainstorm.

But the teeth show signs of being shed, which suggests they were either lost naturally or while feeding.

The velociraptorines may have preyed on Iguanodon, a herbivorous dinosaur also known from the Early Cretaceous on the Isle of Wight.

Mr Sweetman said he hoped further digging might unearth bones from the dinosaurs. But, he said, "the Wealden only tends to produce scrappy things rather than skeletons".

The only other velociraptorine found in the UK so far is the species Nuthetes destructor, from the Purbeck limestone beds in Dorset.

For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.

Europe's 'biggest dinosaur' found





Dinosaur Fossils found in Spain belong to what was probably Europe's biggest ever dinosaur, according to scientists.

Turiasaurus would have been 30 to 37 metres long, and would have weighed between 40 and 48 tonnes.

Writing in the journal Science, researchers say the beast is probably the only member so far discovered of a European group of Jurassic reptiles.

The world's biggest recorded dinosaur is Argentinosaurus, a South American reptile twice as heavy.

Like the rest of the giant long-necked sauropods, Turiasaurus riodevensis was a herbivore, despite the fierce appearance of its teeth.

Big-boned

Fossils came to light in 2004 at Teruel in eastern Spain, and the scientists responsible, from the Fundacion Conjunto Paleontologico de Teruel-Dinopolis, have just published a formal analysis.

Although languishing some way behind Argentinosaurus, Turiasaurus was a substantial specimen.

At 1.79m long, its humerus (upper arm bone) is one of the largest ever recorded, while one of its claws is comparable with a rugby ball or American football.

The discovery site also contains teeth from theropod dinosaurs, Stegosaurus remnants, and fragments from fish and turtles.

By comparing its features with other European dinosaurs, the scientists deduce that it belongs to a previously unknown clade, or grouping, which evolved in the Jurassic period (200 to 145 million years ago).

Teeth excavated in France, Portugal and the UK are similar, indicating that Turiasaurus, or more likely its close relatives, ranged across the continent.

For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.

Tiny dinosaur species identified






A new species of dinosaur has been identified 30 years after its fossilised remains were discovered.

Fruitadens haagarorum, researchers say, is one of the smallest dinosaurs known to science.

In the Royal Society journal Proceedings B, the researchers say that the dinosaur weighed less that 1kg.

The dinosaur fossils have been housed at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County since being discovered in Colorado in 1979.

According to the researchers, the tiny dinosaur was agile and a fast runner. It lived in the Upper Jurassic period, about 150 million years ago.

It was a member of a group of dinosaurs called the ornithischians, which were largely plant-eating creatures that included the far more imposing Triceratops and Stegosaurus.

It would have darted between the legs of some of the largest known long-necked sauropods, such as Brachiosaurus.
The study that identified the diminutive creature was led by Richard Butler from the Bavarian State Collection for Palaeontology in Munich, Germany.

He told BBC News that examination of the dinosaur's teeth had revealed Fruitadens was probably an omnivore - eating smaller animals as well as vegetation.

"This is unusual for that group - most of them were strict herbivores," he said. "But if you're small, it's hard to feed on just vegetation, as it's difficult to digest."

Bigger animals with much larger guts were better able to survive on a plant-only diet.

The genus nameFruitadens refers to the area of Fruita in Colorado, where the fossils were first discovered.

"Fruitadens comes from a series of rocks, the Morrison Formation, which palaeontologists have studied intensively for 130 years, and from which dozens of dinosaur species are already known," said Dr Butler.

"Yet it is still possible to discover completely unique and remarkable species. If dinosaur ecosystems were that diverse, who knows what astonishing beasts are waiting for us to discover?"

For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.

The Dinosaur Trader Personality Test

Tuesday, April 26, 2011


Not really, it's an external link to "the Spark" or something like that.

But whatever.

Look, I'm feeling introspective tonight after my staggering market loss. I want to know more about "you people." Also, I'll be surfing early and won't have a morning post up. This will have to do.

So take the test and tell the world what your personality "flaw" is, in the comment section.

It takes about 7 or 8 minutes to take the test. First, you have to sign up for an account... they want your email but you can opt out of getting bothered. The thing is, if you take the test and complete it, you can check at the end to see how compatible you are with other people who took it. So, if you want other people here to know how compatible they are with you, write the email address that you gave to "the Spark" in the comment section along with your test results.

Most of the time, I hate people... let's see if I hate you too.

Just follow along with the first comment... which I will post.

For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.

The Jurassic Period


The Jurassic Period, 190-135 million years ago, was the middle segment of the Mesozoic Era, the Age of Dinosaurs. While small, herbivorous dinosaurs had appeared in the Triassic, the Jurassic witnessed the rise of their larger cousins, such as allosaurus, stegosaurus and brontosaurus. Earth's continents, now split west to east by the Tethys Sea, still occupied the warmer latitudes, fostering dense vegetation that sustained these giants. Small mammals already scurried beneath the copious plant life but would be dominated by dinosaurs throughout the Mesozoic.

Flowering plants appeared during the Jurassic, some 200 million years after ferns and early conifers graced the scene. Other newcomers included pterosaurs and archaeopteryx; while the former were superb gliders, the latter was perhaps the most primitive relative of modern birds. The Atlantic began to open in the middle of the Period and the Sundance Sea covered most of what is now the High Plains and Rocky Mountain region of North America; this shallow sea deposited the Morrison Formation, now famous for its cargo of Jurassic fossils.

In concert with the opening of the Atlantic, the Andes began to rise (as the Farallon Plate subducted beneath future South America) and the Smartville Block, a large exotic terrain, collided with western North America, adding much of Nevada and California to the Continent; it was within this terrain that the massive Sierra Batholith began to form, not to rise until the end of the Tertiary (some four million years ago). On the other side of the young Atlantic, Madagascar rifted from Africa, drifting southward to rendezvous with the interconnected mass of Antarctica, Australia and India. All in all, the Jurassic was certainly a momentous Period in the history of our planet.

For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.





Utah Dinosaur Bone


Unidentified dinosaur bone cross section found in the Morrison Formation of Utah. The fossil appears to be from the Jurassic Period. Dimensions of specimen are 3" x 2.75" x 0.03125-0.5" with a weight of 3.8 oz. Acquired on eBay from seller pondcityrocks.





For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.





Dinosaur Bones, a rare and precious find

Monday, April 25, 2011



I am officially on a Toronto kick. Hailing from the Big Smoke is the latest recommended listening from Island SoapBox, Dinosaur Bones, and their debut full length My Divider. Due out March 8, this bad boy is down right good. Taking their time in the studio (they spent over six weeks recording), the five men behind the sound have put forth 11 tracks worth listening to.

My first impression of the record was it seemed very dramatic. The songs have a great flow, and I found myself going through a range of emotions listening, but the dramatic undertones seem to carry through. I think that's why I'm enjoying this particular album so much, this is music that is out of my "typical listening", especially when it comes to a five piece group, but these guys have me hooked.

"Ice Hotels" is probably my favourite right now. I think it offers up a lot of what Dinosaur Bones offers up, and what I just talked about. The song builds really nicely, and stays quite simple sounding while getting there. "Bombs in the Night" would be my other favourite. I like the driving beat behind this one, and I just really like how it's put together. It does a weird thing in my brain I can't quite describe, I just know I enjoy it!

This album has certainly made a fan out of me. I was not very familiar with the group before, but I am quite pleased to know about them now. I'm thinking March 8 will be a great day for the boys, and an even better day for their fans. With a Canadian Tour planned already, there will be plenty of opportunity to grab this album for yourself, and add to that growing fan base.

For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.





Dinosaur Bones



Yesterday I spent the morning on a tour of the Trail Through Time, an area within McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area that is riddled with 150 million year old dinosaur fossils. I had been out to this trail before, and despite the interpretive signs, I still had difficulty identifying the fossils. With the help of Zeb Miracle, our tour guide, seeing the bones was much easier.

We saw vertebrae from the neck of a Camarasaurus dinosaur. Just a section of the neck bones was about 20 feet long! The bones embedded in the rock have a slightly grayer color and are smoother than the rest of the rock. The best part was that, unlike in a museum, we were allowed to touch the fossils to get a sense of the size of these creatures.

We learned that this area of the Colorado desert, now known as Rabbit Valley, was once a lush wetland where dinosaurs and other animals came to drink. It’s hard to imagine that this dry desert was a jungle millions of years ago!

For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.

Jurassic Park in real life

Sunday, April 24, 2011


Okay so obviously i am talking about cloning. Clearly jurassic park style dinosaursare still far out of reach, and futher research is still required in these areas. However the various extinct genomes have been resurrected.

Australian Scientis at the Universtiy of Melbourne have sucessfully ressurected the extinct gene of the Tasmanian Tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus). The Tasmanian Tiger was a large carnivorous Australian marsupial which was hunted to extinction in the early 1900's. Scientists have sucessfully isolated the Col21A gene and injected into a mouse embryo. This process was sucessfull in 'resurecting' the extinct gene. Similar experiments have been conducted using mammoth DNA.

This technology will enable scientists to examine the biological functions of DNA from numerous extinct species. This not onlynallows palaeontolgist to gain futher insight into the lives of extinct animals, it also may prove potentially benificial in curing various, currently incurable diseases.

With almost 99% of species which have existed on earth being extinct, this opens up numerous possiblilities. The ability to access these extinct genes (provided of course that there is a sufficent quantites of DNA) facinates me. With further research one must consider the possibility of one day being able to effetively 'resurect' species entirely, something that with cureent extinction rates could enurse the survival of the diverse range of species on earth.

So who knows maybe one day we really will be able to go to some sort of 'park' and see dinosaurs alive and moving (although this would as Alan Grant puts it in the movie "Put me out of the job", well future job at least). With alot more time, effort, and money maybe someday someone really will be able to say 'Welcome to Jurassic Park'.

For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.





Elliot the Aussie Sauropod



Okay so for my next post I thought I might just write about one of my favorite dinosaurs....Elliot

Height: 3.5 meters high at the hip

Legnth: 16 to 21 meters (approximately)

Diet: Herbivore

Elliot is an Australian Sauropod dicovered at the Winton Formation in 1999 by his namesake, Dave Elliot. This large Sauropod lived almost 100 million years ago in the Cretaceous Period. Elliot most likely spent most of his time browsing in the forest that surrounded the inland sea which covered most of Queensland and cenral Australia during the time in which Elliot roamed the earth. Like many sauropods the immense size of Elliot ensured that he would have had very few predators.


"The remains of Elliot were discovered in 1999 by his namesake, Dave Elliott, a Winton grazier. In 2001, a team from the Queensland Museum investigated the site, and with the help of Dave and his family, unearthed more bones. In 2002, Dr Steve Salisbury (now at The University of Queensland), Dr Alex Cook and Scott Hocknull led a major excavation to the site, enlisting the help of over 40 volunteers. This excavation continued in 2003 as part of The University of Queensland's Winton Dinosaur Project. The discovery represents physical evidence of the largest dinosaur skeleton of any kind ever found in Australia.

For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.





Dangerous Dinos Came Out After Dark

Thursday, April 21, 2011


As if velociraptors weren’t scary enough. A new analysis of dinosaur-era skulls suggests that at least one of these birdlike predators, along with many of its ancient brethren, hunted by night.

Not all extinct archosaurs—dinosaurs and their close relatives—loved to bask in the sun. Like other animal groups, these ancient creatures were up at all hours, researchers from the University of California, Davis report online April 14 in Science. And just like modern mammals, predatory dinos seem to have preferred prowling the night, while herbivores grazed during the day and into the evening.

“We shouldn’t be surprised that there were predatory dinosaurs skulking around the shadows,” says Lawrence Witmer, a paleobiologist with Ohio University in Athens. “The surprising thing about this study is we could tell.”

The UC Davis team could tell nocturnal from daytime dinos by looking deep into their eyes. In living animals, that’s easy. Nocturnal critters’ eyes usually have wide pupils, for instance, but are relatively shallow. That means a cat’s peepers let in lots of light, but can’t take detailed pictures. Dino fossils, however, don’t come with mushy eye tissue. So researchers have the much harder task of inferring visual prowess from bones.

Study coauthors Lars Schmitz, an evolutionary biologist, and Ryosuke Motani, a paleobiologist, started with living animals—lizards and birds. They looked at the sizes of eye sockets and scleral rings—thin, bony layers that sit, in these creatures, roughly where the whites of a mammal’s eyes would be. Taken together, these structures appeared to predict activity patterns.

Then Schmitz and Motani inspected skulls of 33 archosaurs, spotting eight dinos that seemed to prefer the sun and nine with eyes better suited to dim light. Others appeared to do well in a mix of sunlight and moonlight. And these ancient beasts seem to fall in line with the same patterns that organize many living vertebrates. Like most birds, flying archosaurs, including the original early bird Archaeopteryx lithographica, tended to soar by day. Herbivores probably dined both during the day and in dim light, much like modern cows. And in true horror movie style, many predators, such as Velociraptor mongoliensis of Jurassic Park fame, seem to have stalked their prey at night. “The velociraptor was nocturnal in that movie, and it actually fits,” Schmitz says.

Evolutionary biologist Margaret Hall has doubts about whether scientists can infer nocturnal behavior from the kind of bony evidence used by the UC Davis team. But she would not be surprised if dinosaurs skulked in the shadows. Every living animal group has night and day ambassadors, says Hall, of Midwestern University in Glendale, Ariz. Why should archosaurs be any different?

The new study supports current appreciations of dino diversity, says Tony Fiorillo, curator of paleontology at the Dallas Museum of Natural History. Many species don’t fit the old notion that dinosaurs moved slowly and depended entirely on the sun for warmth. He’s confident that perceptions will evolve even further. “The field of dinosaur paleontology is so active and engaged right now that we won’t have to wait 10 years,” Fiorillo says. “At some levels, it changes from year to year.”

For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.





Dino Easter Egg Hunt At The Dinosaur Place


http://www.thedinosaurplace.com/
1650 Hartford-New London Turnpike
Oakdale, CT 06370

Green Outdoors: Dino Easter Egg Hunt At The Dinosaur Place

The Dinosaur Place is taking a prehistoric spin on the traditional egg hunt. This year, guests will search the adventure park for over 500 Dino Eggs during the Dino Easter Egg Hunt, being held at 10:15 a.m. on Saturday, April 23.

“We are so excited for our young guests to participate in this exciting egg hunt,” says Linda Phillips, Chief Executive Officer. “Some of our eggs are quite large as you might expect for a dinosaur. We can’t wait to see the kids faces when they open them. We are also revealing our newest edition to our lineup of interactive characters that morning, a baby “Monty” dinosaur modeled after our very own Monty the T-Rex dinosaur”.


How the egg hunt works: Each age group will be escorted to three different areas of the outdoor adventure to hunt for dinosaur eggs of varied sizes. Over 500 eggs will be available. Each egg will contain two surprises, a baby dinosaur, and a coupon which may be redeemed inside at the Egg Redemption Center for another prize. Children are to take their eggs to the Dino Egg Redemption Center located inside the Shop at Nature’s Art. Dinosaurs contained within the eggs and associated prizes are yours to keep. Once prizes are collected, everyone may return to the outdoor adventure for a fun filled day.

Egg Hunt Schedule – Sat, April 23rd

9:30am Park opens early for Egg Hunt participants.

Upon entry, each participant will receive a handstamp allowing in/out access for the day at the Outdoor Adventure. Special Egg Hunt All Day Outdoor Adventure Admission: $14.99 per child participant. Adults – $12.99. Normal admission prices apply after Egg Hunt.

10:00am DinoMights Special Welcome

Our very own DinoMights, Lady Lava, Jurassic Joe and Ranger Rex will introduce a newly hatched, special baby dinosaur, Monty “Junior”, our newest interactive character to the Dinosaur Place.

10:15am Egg Hunt Begins

To ensure that everyone gets a chance to find awesome Dino Eggs, the hunt will be available for three different age groups at three different locations -

For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.





Age of the Dinosaur exhibition opens Friday 22 April


Natural History Museum: Age of the Dinosaur exhibition opens Friday 22 April
The animatronic dinosaurs are lifelike enough, but the exhibition also brings to life their natural habitat, so visitors get immersed in Jurassic and Cretaceous environments along with weird and wonderful now extinct plants and animals.

As well as the animatronics, Age of the Dinosaur has CGI (computer generated images) film, stunning images, interactive stations, and amazing specimens, including real fossil dinosaur bones, to help visitors explore a world of more than 65 million years ago.

Well-preserved fossil of an Rhamphorhynchus, a flying reptile, or pterosaur.
And keep hold of your ticket as there is a NaturePlus barcode on it that lets you continue your dinosaur and fossil exploration back home on your computer.

Museum specimens
Age of the Dinosaur is rich with Museum specimens giving a taster of the important science work that goes on behind the scenes.

They come from the Museum’s world-class palaeontology collections and this is the first time in 5 years that so many have been used in a temporary exhibition.

Olympic gold medallist Denise Lewis OBE
Animatronics
The exhibition has 6 animatronic dinosaurs, and an animatronic Archaeopteryx, the earliest known bird.

The 1.5 tonne Tarbosaurus took 8 people and a forklift truck to get it safely into the Museum. They are produced by Kokoro, based in Tokyo, Japan.

Jurassic zone
In the Jurassic zone, see a huge tooth from a pliosaur, one of the many Jurassic marine monsters.

Find out more dinosaur facts and fun at the interactive stations
Along with plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs, these menacing predators used their jagged, ridged teeth to gorge themselves on fish, squid and other sea creatures.

Take a look at a special fossil of a pterosaur. These flying reptiles had wings supported by a single long finger. They shared the air with birds and could fly as soon as they hatched.

The first dinosaur to come to life in the exhibition is a life-size Camarasaurus eating from the treetops of a Jurassic forest and calling to the rest of its herd.

Actor John Hannah
Cretaceous zone
In the Cretaceous zone, get a glimpse of some of the first flowering plants. Before the Cretaceous Period, plants only used seeds or spores to reproduce.

Examine the skull of a duck-billed dinosaur, Lambeosaurus lambei, that that had 700 teeth!

More life-size animatronic dinosaur scenes are waiting, including Protoceratops defending its nest and the tall, slim, ostrich-like Gallimimus.

Keep an eye out for Oviraptor and Velociraptor, two small, vicious meat-eating dinosaurs.

And the final dramatic Tarbosaurus, a cousin of T.rex, and every bit as scary.

For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.





In Dinosaur Science, Size Is Just the Beginning

Wednesday, April 20, 2011





Before entering the fascinating new exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History, “The World’s Largest Dinosaurs,” which opens on Saturday, walk through the Hall of Saurischian Dinosaurs where the composite skeleton of the Apatosaurus reigns, the core of its 140-million-year-old frame seeming almost incidental to its stupendously sweeping neck and tail. The weighty immensity of these fossilized bones once earned this creature — one of the largest to have plodded the planet — the name of thunder lizard (Brontosaurus).

But over the last generation, we have been living through a revolution in paleontology. The primal force wielded by such skeletal monsters, portrayed in their very names (like Triceratops: three-horned face), has been superseded. Bones, scales and armor are now emphasized less than possibilities of feathers, color and flesh. Birds, not brutish reptilian creatures, are now more often seen as dinosaurs’ closest relations.

In one exhibition at this museum a few years ago, about new discoveries in paleontology, it almost seemed as if dinosaurs’ macho-like archetype had shifted and that these former master hunters of alien prehistoric landscapes were becoming domesticated. And while the new show, devoted to Apatosaurus’s group — long-necked herbivores known as sauropods — might have once evoked a thunderous natural world, red in tooth and claw, now it ushers us into an elegant conceptual terrain, revealing how a field that might have once been vulnerable to fossilization is redefining itself.

In fact, don’t go into the exhibition expecting to view anything like what you see in the museum’s renowned dinosaur halls. There are some specimens here — a six-foot-tall femur of a Camarasaurus, sauropod vertebrae, fossils of skin impressions — yet the focus is not on artifacts but on how these creatures’ bodies worked. What is crucial is not bones but biology.

We don’t look at skeletons, but rather at models and re-creations, and read hypotheses about parts of these creatures that have never been found and never will be: their stomachs, brains, hearts and lungs. How did sauropods eat and digest? What was their circulatory system like and how fast did their hearts beat? How did they breathe and what were their lungs like?

These are intriguing questions because sauropods have been among the most successful land creatures ever; their remains have been found, we learn, on all seven continents in sediments that range over 140 million years. They were also enormous.

When you enter the exhibition, you are led into a hint of a forest primeval into which protrudes a model neck and head of an Argentinosaurus, a dinosaur that, the text tells us, is “currently considered the world’s largest.” Around 95 million years ago, such creatures could weigh 90 tons; the narrowest part of its leg might be about four feet around, and it could be 130 feet long. The main gallery space is dominated by a model of a comparatively miniature species: a 60-foot-long Mamenchisaurus hochuanensis based on a specimen found in China, its midsection serving as a giant movie screen presenting a survey of recent hypotheses about sauropods and their biological processes.

Mark A. Norell, the chairman of the museum’s division of paleontology, was joined in curating the exhibition by P. Martin Sander from the University of Bonn in Germany, who for the last seven years has led a team of German and Swiss scientists, including specialists in nutrition, biomechanics and paleontology. They examined the biology behind the size of sauropods. (Their papers have just been published in “Biology of the Sauropod Dinosaurs: Understanding the Life of Giants.”) The show is a masterly distillation of their findings.

Size, we learn, is accompanied by some distinctive biological tendencies. The exhibition gives some sense of the range in size that exists even among related animals, extending in birds, for example, from the tiny bee hummingbird to the now extinct 880-pound elephant bird of Madagascar. Differences in size are associated with differences in biological processes. Generally bigger animals have slower heart rates; smaller animals breathe faster; bigger animals live longer; small animals produce more offspring.

But the heavier an animal becomes, the larger must be its weight-bearing bones, and the larger such bones are, the heavier they become. Size and weight eventually reach limits, though they lie far beyond contemporary human experience: a replica of a 15-foot-tall Supersaurus hind leg makes a nearby human skeleton seem like a Tinkertoy. A half-foot-long titan beetle here — large enough to inspire creepy sensations — is, we learn, about as large as a beetle can grow because that insect’s cells receive oxygen not through a circulatory system but through diffusion, which becomes more difficult with an increase in size.

For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.

n Dinosaur Science, Size Is Just the Beginning


The scene couldn't have been set better. Overcast skies and fog loomed over Reptiland on Route 15, making it feel like it was the Jurassic Period some 200 million years ago.

Amid the forklifts and machine noise, dinosaurs from a time long ago began to appear in the back area of the zoo on Wednesday morning.

A handful of people helped unload the new specimens that will be part of a new outdoor area of the zoo, in an temporary exhibit called "Dinosaurs Come to Life."

Visitors will get a good look at seven animatronic dinosaurs, each nestled in their own habitats. The exhibit opens to the public on April 30.

Dinosaur species such as chasmosaurus, euoplocephalus, dilophosaurus, baby amargasaurus and stegosaurus, and a nest and hatchlings full of [arasaurolophus are part of the exhibit.

The long-necked brachiosaurus also is part of the exhibit, and the ever popular

meat-eater Tyrannosaurus rex will stalk visitors.

Laura Brennan, marketing coordinator at Reptiland, said this a perfect way for anyone with an interest in dinosaurs to see the creatures up-close, young and old.

"The majority of them move their heads up and down, back and forth," she said. "Some of their eyes actually move, which is pretty cool. If you stand underneath T. rex, his eyes look around and it looks like he is singling you out."

The T. rex towers at around 19 feet tall, weighs 7,000 pounds and is 43 feet long. Its herbivore counterpart, the brachiosaurus, has a long neck makes it 18 feet tall. It will be set up to reach into the pine trees to eat.

Each of the dinosaurs makes a sound and one even spits water.

The specimens come from Billings Production, a company based in Texas, which creates such exhibits and rents them to zoos and science centers all over the world.

Because dinosaurs are closely related to reptiles and amphibians, the new exhibit ties in nicely with Reptiland's primary attractions, Brennan said.

The zoo has permanent exhibits of more than 40 species of reptiles and amphibians in the indoor area.

"In some of my research, I found some frogs were around when dinosaurs were (alive)," she said. "Even some butterflies (existed then)."

The butterfly house opens on May 2.

The "Dinosaurs Come Alive" exhibit is the first of its kind to come the area. Large metropolitan areas such as Philadelphia and Pittsburgh feature exhibits of fossils and bones but have nothing like this, Brennan said.

""Everyone has a curiously about dinosaurs whether its young or old. You can read about them, but here you can actually see them, their size and what they may have actually looked liked," she said.

Visitors will experience an outdoor trail leading them through the exhibit. Each dinosaur has an interpretive panel with more facts and details.

A lot of time and effort has been put into the exhibit by the zoo staff to creature a distinct, "jurassic" habitat for the creatures, through the use of pampas grasses, palms and ferns.

For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.

Long-necked giant sauropods scarfed down fast-food feasts

Tuesday, April 19, 2011





Nothing in the dinosaur world was quite like the sauropods. They were huge, some unbelievably gigantic, the biggest animals ever to lumber across the land, consuming everything in sight. Their necks were much longer than a giraffe’s, their tails just about as long and their bodies like an elephant’s, only much more so.

Wide-eyed first-graders are not the only ones fascinated by sauropods, particularly those outsize friends Apatosaurus (formerly known as Brontosaurus), Brachiosaurus and Diplodocus. Scientists are redoubling their study of the unusual biology of these amazing plant-eaters. They are asking questions not unlike, in spirit, those of schoolchildren.

By what physiological strategy of heart, lungs and metabolism were the largest of sauropod species able to thrive over a span of 140 million years? How did they possibly get enough to eat to grow so hefty, to lengths of 15 to 150 feet and estimated weights of up to 70 tons? A mere elephant has to eat 18 hours a day to get its fill. Even in the Mesozoic era, there were only 24 hours in a day.

For more than seven years, a group of German and Swiss scientists has made a concerted effort to test the limits of body size in terrestrial vertebrates and, in the process, try to answer these and other questions related to the enigma of sauropod gigantism. Findings by many other scientists have been reviewed and analyzed, then tested with new experiments and more observations.

“We actually have been re-engineering a sauropod,” said P. Martin Sander, a paleontologist at the University of Bonn and leader of the research team. “We are looking for physical advantages it had over other large animals and assessing various hypotheses.”

One clear explanation has emerged: These were the ultimate fast-food gourmands. Reaching all around with their long necks, these giants gulped down enormous meals. With no molars in their relatively small heads, they were unequipped for serious chewing. They let the digestive juices of their capacious bodies break down their heaping intake while they just kept packing away more chow.

This was seemingly the only efficient way for sauropods to satisfy their appetites and to diversify into some 120 genera, beginning more than 200 million years ago. They eventually dominated the landscape for a long run through the Cretaceous, only to die out with all non-avian dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.

Some Dinosaurs Liked the Night Life, Eye Bones Show



Paleontologists have generally believed that dinosaurs were active only during the day, preserving their energy at night, when mammals hunted and ate. But an analysis of dinosaur eye structure shows that at least some dinosaurs functioned quite capably in the dark.

In a paper published online Thursday in the journal Science, researchers report that they deduced dinosaur eye structure from the size and shape of the eye socket and of the scleral ring, a bone that sits inside the white of the eye of dinosaurs, birds and lizards. In living nocturnal animals, the inner diameter of the scleral ring is large in relation to its external diameter and to the focal length of the eye (the distance from the lens to the retina). In animals active during the day, the pattern is reversed: a scleral ring with a smaller diameter in relation to its internal diameter and the eye’s focal length.

The scientists looked at the eye structures of 33 species of dinosaurs that lived from 230 million to 65 million years ago. Nine of the species, all small carnivores, had eyes that were characteristic of living nocturnal animals. All of the herbivores, on the other hand, were diurnal.

The lead author, Lars Schmitz, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Davis, said that the pattern persisted today in mammals. “Large mammal plant eaters are active day and night,” Dr. Schmitz said. “Mammal predators, like the large cats, are mostly nocturnal.”

For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.

Walking with dinosaurs

Monday, April 18, 2011



Dinosaurs hold a fascination on our culture, even 250 million years after they roamed the earth. How else can you explain the success of everything from the Flinstones to Jurassic Park to the BBC TV show, Walking with Dinosaurs?

Now there's a new touring show based on that series that brings the large lizards to life in a new way.

Walking with Dinosaurs has been traveling around to arenas that are large enough to hold the Braciosaurus, T.Rex and their fellow gigantic extinct creatures. The exhibit is now on display at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.

MPR's Tom Crann visited the dinosaur show with paleontologist Kristi Curry Rogers, an assistant professor of paleontology at Macalester College who specializes in long-necked dinosaurs.

Rogers has some thoughts about the fascination we all have with dinosaurs, at any age.

"Part of it is that dinosaurs, at least for kids, are monsters. They really are real monsters, but they're extinct so they can't really do any damage to us. They don't really live with us anymore," said Rogers. "But I also think it's the fact that in museums and on television you see the bones of dinosaurs, and that leaves a lot of room for your imagination to put the skin and muscle and behaviors back onto those dinosaurs."

"Dinosaur science is one of those rare scientific disciplines in which you can really use your imagination to try to understand things," Rogers continued. "And there's a lot of room for creativity for that science, because there's a lot we just can't know."

Rogers was excited about the prospect of seeing the stage show, both the scientific and imaginative aspects. It's hosted by an actor who portrays a paleontologist, complete with Indiana Jones vest.

He served as the tour guide for Tom Crann and Kristi Curry Rogers.

For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.





Rare T. Rex Footprint Found?



Odds are 50/50 that the dinosaur that left this mark in Montana was a Tyrannosaurus rex, says the scientist who announced the find yesterday.

Whatever it was, it was big.

"We have two large theropods to choose from [in this region], Nanotyrannus and T. rex," Phil Manning (pictured) told National Geographic News via email. "So either [dinosaur] (or an unknown) could have generated the track."

Referring to some breathless headlines of the past 24 hours, he added, "You can imagine which one the media wants!

"Unless you find an animal dead in its tracks, it is nigh impossible to identify the track maker," added the University of Manchester paleontologist, whose work is partially funded by the Expeditions Council of the National Geographic Society (which also owns National Geographic News).

If confirmed, it would be only the second known T. rex print. The first was found in 1983 in New Mexico.

Manning originally saw the three-foot-wide (meter-wide), 65-odd-million-year-old track in 2006 in the dinosaur-rich Hell Creek formation, and he is preparing a report for full scientific review.

In the meantime, he wrote, "we intend to keep the site secret until suitable measures can be taken to preserve the track."

For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.





When Giants Walked the Earth

Friday, April 15, 2011





In the ancient world, all the animals were much larger, and that encompasses more than just dinosaurs. Scientists have speculated that the blue whale is the largest animal to ever exist on earth, and it still exists to this day. However, in the past, the mammals, reptiles, and even birds were much larger. It’s not known why ancient animals were so much larger, though many suspect that it was due to the relative temperature and humidity of the planet, as the polar ice caps did not exist. This caused reptiles like snakes to become much larger, which in turn, allowed other animals which fed on reptiles to have a larger source of food. As the earth started to cool down, it was the smaller and faster animals that started to be more successful, and the larger animals, not being able to catch their food, died out.

Everything we know about these prehistoric creatures has been gleaned from dinosaur fossils. And while we often think of dinosaurs as the larger animals in the food chain, but there were also large mammals as evidenced by locations like the La Brea tar pits. In the tar pits, ancient mammals of immense size were evidenced by the discovery of fossils like the dire wolf skull, saber tooth tiger skull, and mammoth skull.

For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.

Discussing the Perplexing Lives of Dinosaurs





Dinosaurs ruled the earth for millions of years. The mysteries of their lives and the enigma of their mass extinction remain contentious issues among scholars and hobbyists alike. From archaeologists in the field to students in the classroom, everyone has their own opinion about the disappearance of these massive creatures. Creating active discussion about not just the way they died but about the way they lived can give us clues to our own place in the planet’s history and in the universe as a whole.

A dinosaur replica is an excellent way to encourage discussion of the perplexing lives of dinosaurs. When did they live and how? Why did they die? More importantly, when did they die? These questions and more serve the purposes of dialogue and are a sure-fire way to promote study. Whether you’re a professional, a hobbyist or a student then a replica can bring you hours of enjoyment and debate for years to come. Enliven your discussions and help uncover the mysteries of the dinosaurs and you may aid in helping us uncover the veiled secrets held in the bones of dinosaurs.

For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.

Prehistoric Treasures





The amazing prehistoric exhibits on view in museums around the world are created from diverse scientific input derived from various paleontological finds. Most prehistoric animal fossil and non-fossil discoveries, including dinosaurs, are comprised of foot imprints, skin imprints, organ and soft tissue imprints, feathers, bodily effluence and fossilized bones, claws and teeth.

In extremely rare instances, the fossilized remains are almost intact. Since most discoveries are fragmented, it takes numerous scientific fields to reconstruct the size, characteristics and identity of the creatures unearthed and the educated assumptions necessary to accomplish this are not exact. Irrespective of any disparities, quality replicas and reproductions of prehistoric fossils offer a priceless opportunity toward the learning and discussion of the earth’s development. What better way to approach the future than to observe the past?

For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.

Missing link ties older to newer dinosaurs

Thursday, April 14, 2011


The surprising discovery of a fossil of asharp-toothed beast that lurked in what is now the western U.S.more than 200 million years ago is filling a gap in dinosaurevolution.

The short snout and slanting front teeth of the find -Daemonosaurus chauliodus - had never before been seen in a Triassicera dinosaur, said Hans-Dieter Sues of the Smithsonian's NationalMuseum of Natural History. Sues and colleagues report the discoveryin Wednesday's edition of the British journal Proceedings of theRoyal Society B.

Sues, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the museum, said thediscovery helps fill the evolutionary gap between the dinosaursthat lived in what is now Argentina and Brazil about 230 millionyears ago and the later theropods like the famous Tyrannosaurusrex.

Features of the skull and neck of Daemonosaurus indicate it wasintermediate between the earliest known predatory dinosaurs fromSouth America and more advanced theropods," said Sues. "One suchfeature is the presence of cavities on some of the neck vertebraerelated to the structure of the respiratory system."

Daemonosaurus was discovered at Ghost Ranch, N.M., a well-knownfossil site famous for the thousands of fossilized skeletons foundthere, notably the small dinosaur Coelophysis. Ghost Ranch was morerecently the home of artist Georgia O'Keeffe, who was known tovisit the archaeological digs under way there, Sues noted.

Having found only the head and neck of sharp-toothedDaemonosaurus, the researchers aren't sure of its exact size butthey speculate it would have been near that of a tall dog. Its nameis from the Greek words "daimon" meaning evil spirit and"sauros" meaning lizard or reptile. Chauliodus is derived fromthe Greek word for "buck-toothed" and refers to the species' bigslanted front teeth.

"It looks to be a mean character," commented paleontologistPaul Sereno of the University of Chicago, who was not part of theresearch team. "I can't wait to see if they get any more of theskeleton."

This fits in quite nicely between the dinosaur groups, Serenosaid, even though its face is unlike anything that would have beenexpected in these early dinosaurs, which tended to have moreelongated snouts.

For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.





Dinosaurs May Have Hunted at Night



Some dinosaurs didn't go to sleep when the sun went down. Like many living animals, some paleo-beasts stayed awake or woke up to forage or begin the hunt for prey.

This discovery, which relied on evidence within fossilized remains of dinosaur eyes, challenges the conventional wisdom that early mammals were nocturnal, or active at night, because dinosaurs had already taken the day shift.

"When we look at living vertebrates today, living birds, lizards and mammals we see such a great diversity of when they're active during the day," said study researcher Lars Schmitz, a postdoctoral researcher in ecology and evolution at the University of California Davis.

Some animals today, like us, are active during the day, while others prefer nighttime. Still others are active periodically throughout a 24-hour cycle. So Schmitz said he and colleague geologist Ryosuke Motani asked: "Why isn’t it possible that dinosaurs are nocturnal as well?"
To find out, they looked into the preserved beasts' eyes. Specifically, they looked at the width of the eye socket, and the dimensions of the scleral ring, a ring of bone that surrounds the iris of the eye in birds, lizards and dinosaurs. (Humans and other mammals don't have this bone.)

Nocturnal animals need to let the maximum amount of light possible into their eyes, so they need a larger opening within the scleral ring. Daytime living species, meanwhile, have much more light with which to see. A smaller opening reduces the amount of energy these animals have to spend constricting their pupils to reduce the amount of light coming in, and it also allows them to see a clear and focused image at a large range of depth, according to Schmitz. [How the Human Eye Works]

Other animals are active at dusk and dawn or at sporadic intervals throughout the day — nowadays this includes large herbivores, like the fallow deer, certain birds, the large hairy armadillo, the Amazon tree boa and even dogs. Their eyes need both acuity and a good sensitivity to light. As a result, they have an intermediate-size scleral ring — among those that have this bone — and an overall larger eye.

In the fossils, researchers examined the proportions of certain features of the eye to determine a species' habits. They looked at the size of the opening inside the scleral ring, where the pupil would be, as well as the eye socket to determine the diameter of the eye, and at the diameter of the external edge of the scleral ring to determine the length of the eye. They then compared this information with data from living species.

Source from : http://www.foxnews.com

For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.





Mega Dinosaur Exhibit On Display In New York



Replicas and actual pieces of some of the world's largest dinosaurs take center stage at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The focus of this new exhibition is just as much the insides of these giants as their huge skeletal outlines.

Some of these dinosaurs grew to be longer than 150 feet, or the length of four standard city buses. Their hearts used to pump ninety times as much blood as human hearts do. They are the sauropods -- uniquely super-sized dinosaurs that are now the focus of a new exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Titled "The World's Largest Dinosaurs", the central focus of the exhibition is an 11-foot tall, 60-foot-long model of a Mamenchisaurus. It is a life-sized fleshed-out model of a young adult female Mamenchisaurus. One side of the model features skin texture and on the other side are video projections that provide a peek inside its long body. While the Mamenchisaurus is not the largest sauropod, its 30-foot-long neck accounts for half of its body size.

"The world's largest dinosaurs really are the sauropods and so we really have a diversity of sauropods on display here in the galleries. But at the same time the show is really centered on one animal in particular, an animal named Mamenchisaurus that was about a 100 million years old and that lived in what is today China," said Mark Norell, chair of the museum's paleontology division and the curator of this exhibition.

Norell was inspired by the idea of peeling away the layers of these super-sized sauropods to show their muscles, bones and internal organs. The idea is also to show how their metabolism was linked to size. So dinosaur enthusiasts can view models of the pumping heart and beating lung of the Mamenchisaurus. Or see a video projection that depicts how this giant breathes.

Interactivity was just as important to Norell and this is a prominent aspect of the exhibition -- children can excavate dinosaur bones in a dig pit at one end while adults can measure femurs. On another side, visitors can peek into the nest of a Titanosaur and then measure the size of its big eggs.

Distinguished by their colossal size, sauropods included animals of diverse shape, and ornamentation. They were plant eaters and lived some 200 million years ago. While walking around the exhibition one can view the 15-foot-tall replica of a Supersaurus Vivianae leg, or the actual vertebra of a Camarasaurus and even skulls of the Diplodocus.

Those wanting to get a glimpse of the largest sauropod need not despair -- parts of the Argentinosaurus are also on display, though it was too big for the museum to make a life sized model of.

These mega dinosaurs which survived as a group for approximately 140 million years can be visited through January 2nd, 2012.

For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.





Should Dinosaurs Be "Cloned" from Ancient DNA?

Tuesday, April 12, 2011





The year is 2020. You have pursued various careers in science, business, medicine, etc., in the 20 or so years since you graduated from Fullam University. Because of your knowledge about evolution and the dinosaur fossil record, you've been asked to participate in a landmark case that will decide if dinosaurs should be cloned from ancient DNA. Experts with various backgrounds and interests are being assembled to aid in the decision-making process. You and your colleagues will be deciding if extinct species should be brought back to life. You don't have long to decide either--new cloning techniques are being tested around the world and the possibility of resurrecting extinct species may soon be within our grasp. Karelis Securities has offered to sponsor your participation, so you and other Fullam alums have been brought together for a debriefing of the situation.
Here is what you learn:

"Many of you remember from the evolution class you took at Fullam at the beginning of this century that dinosaurs were the dominant forms of life on land for more than 100 million years. Dinosaurs lived on all continents in a wide spectrum of environments from the poles to the tropics. All of the evidence suggests that dinosaurs were successful, complex animals well adapted to conditions on Earth. In fact, many scientists believe that the evolutionary potential of mammals was suppressed throughout the entire Mesozoic because of the supremacy and dominance of the dinosaurs. Only during the breakup of Pangea and after dinosaurs were removed from the scene did mammals undergo an evolutionary radiation to occupy many of the niches left vacant as a result of the Cretaceous/Tertiary mass extinction.

In the decades since the asteroid hypothesis was first proposed by Walter Alvarez and others to explain the sudden demise of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago, scientists have continued to accumulate incontrovertible evidence that the extinction of the dinosaurs was caused by an impacting asteroid from outer space. Substantiation of this theory proves that dinosaurs became extinct NOT because of "bad genes" or a lack of adaptability to natural changes taking place on Earth but because of random bad luck caused by a horrifying extraterrestrial event that wiped out a significant percentage of all Earth's species at the end of the Mesozoic.

With recent advances in molecular biology, we now have at our disposal the technology that will enable us to reverse this unfortunate set of circumstances for the dinosaurs. Sources of dinosaur DNA have been identified at several (secret) sites around the world. Available technology will enable us to extract the fossilized DNA from dinosaur remains, purify it, concentrate or amplify it, and replicate it before implanting the dinosaur DNA into donor eggs from closely related species. Here is our chance to undo the after-effects of the asteroid and return to Earth closely managed members of the dominant life forms that preceded us in time.

Since the evolution of Homo sapiens in the past half million years, we have been accused of propagating a new mass extinction. Many scientists now believe that the so-called "Sixth Extinction" began in the Pleistocene as recently as 50,000 years ago when humans as hunters or disease vectors began a worldwide decimation of megafauna (i.e., large-bodied mammals). Scientists from every continent have expressed their growing concerns that this mass extinction event continues to accelerate today, rivaling the Mesozoic mass extinction in the scope and intensity of species extinctions around the globe. With new cloning techniques, we now have within our grasp the opportunity to reverse the deadly decline of global biodiversity and reinstate to Earth critical members of global ecosystems that existed here only a short time ago, geologically speaking.

Your decision will determine the ultimate fate of the dinosaurs. Should they be doomed to extinction forever or brought back to the Earth they should have inherited? Your job is to carefully evaluate the situation and prepare a report that will enable the judges in this case to reach a final decision. The latest information about scientific research on cloning has been made available to you, including some discussion about human cloning. But remember, this is a case about whether dinosaurs, not humans, should be cloned. Thank you for your participation in an historic case that will have global implications."

HERE'S THE SITUATION:

You and your colleagues must decide the fate of the dinosaurs before a world audience anxious to know your decision. Before you come to any conclusions, however, you need to understand more about the science of cloning; genetic engineering of ancient DNA; how to develop a dinosaur embryo and successfully raise it to adulthood; animal husbandry issues related to supporting a living, adult dinosaur under post-Mesozoic conditions; safety issues; ethical issues, etc.

To facilitate the court proceedings during class, each of you will serve either as a judge or represent a particular specialty on one of two teams: one team will argue the case in support of dinosaur cloning and the other will present arguments against dinosaur cloning.

For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.

'Hatching the Past' at Melbourne Museum


Melbourne, AU - Never before seen in Australia, the exhibition features over 130 dinosaur egg casts, 15 complete articulated dinosaur cast skeletons, life-sized models as well as baby chickens, alligators and other live exhibits. What came first – the dinosaur or the egg? Find out the answer in Hatching the Past: Dinosaur Eggs and Babies, a new exhibition on display at Melbourne Museum from 30 May to 24 August 2008.

Hatching the Past will feature a variety of ‘modern day’ dinosaurs, including baby chicken hatchlings, baby alligators and baby lizards. The family-friendly exhibition also features the opportunity to touch cast dinosaur bones and nests, dig for eggs and experience hands-on learning centres.

Also featured in the exhibition is the nearly complete skeleton cast of a dinosaur embryo found by Hatching the Past creator Charlie Magovern. Nicknamed ‘Baby Louie’ after National Geographic photographer Louie Psihoyos, the discovery was made in 1993 when palaeontologists were cleaning a large block of eggs from China.

The exhibition showcases an extraordinary collection of 100 fossilized eggs from each of the major plant and meat eating dinosaur groups. Collected from all over the world, the fossils include a bowling ball-sized egg of a titanosaur from Argentina and the longest dinosaur eggs ever discovered- those of the oviraptor, a carnivorous, ostrich-like dinosaur discovered in Central China.

“Hatching the Past presents new discoveries about dinosaur reproduction and behaviour. We are especially looking forward to the ‘live’ components of the exhibition – the baby chicken hatchlings, baby alligators and lizards said Brett Dunlop, Manager, Melbourne Museum.

Although dinosaur eggs were first identified in fossils in the 1920’s, their scientific significance was not fully appreciated until the end of the 20th century. Today, dinosaur eggs are recognized for their enormous scientific value and for offering fascinating details and fresh insights into the behaviour, growth and evolution of dinosaurs. Including scientific contributions from palaeontologists from Yale University, the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the Houston Museum of Natural Science, the exhibition also showcases the world’s largest and smallest hard shelled eggs.

For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.





New Dinosaur Species Found

Monday, April 11, 2011








Sure it's pretty scary--beady eyes and all--but 125-million-year-old Raptorex kriegsteini (seen above in a new model) was no T. rex, at least in the size department. The newfound, 150-pound (70-kilogram) dinosaur, however, was nearly identical to its descendant, the 6-ton T. rex in every other way, a new study says. (Read full story.)

That Raptorex, via evolution, "scaled up, almost without change, a hundred times," resulting in T. rex some 40 million years later is an "evolutionarily staggering thing," said paleontologist Paul Sereno, lead author of the study, to be published in the journal Science tomorrow.

Newly discovered Raptorex gets underfoot of its nearly identical, though a hundred times heavier, descendant, T. rex in an artist's conception. The tiny T. rex ancestor is not known to have lived alongside its titanic ancestor.

The Raptorex find, announced September 17, 2009, runs counter to previous theories, which had said that stumpy arms were a relatively recent evolutionary development for T. rex.

Prior to Raptorex, said paleontologist Thomas Holtz of the University of Maryland, "we didn't know where and when in the history of the tyrannosaurs this arm-shortening occurred."

T. rex hypothetically could have swallowed a Raptorex head whole, skulls of both dinosaurs (pictured) suggest.

Raptorex has all the main characteristics of T. rex--big head, nipping teeth, stubby arms, fast legs--but packed into a 9-foot (3-meter) frame.

Paleontologist Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago adjusts the world's only known Raptorex skeleton, which was smuggled out of a Chinese fossil bed and later sold to U.S. collector Henry Kriegstein.

Kriegstein worked with Sereno to see that the T. rex ancestor, revealed in September 2009, was properly studied and allowed the skeleton to eventually be returned to China, where it eventually go on public display.

The Raptorex project can hopefully serve as a model for saving--and learning from--smuggled dinosaurs.

For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.