Wednesday, January 9, 2013

New Study Sheds glow- Dinosaur Size

Dinosaurs were not only the biggest animals to wander the Earth -- they also had a better number of bigger species compared to all other back-boned animals.

The researchers, from Queen Mary, University of London, compared the dimension of the femur bone of 329 dissimilar dinosaur species from fossil records. The length and weight of the femur bone is a documented method in paleontology for estimating a dinosaur's body mass.

They found that dinosaurs pursue the reverse model of body size distribution as seen in other vertebrate species. For example, within living mammals there tends to be little better species, such as elephants, compared to lesser animals, such as mice, which have many species. The proof from fossil records implies that in difference there were many species of better dinosaurs and few small species.

Our proof supports the hypothesis that youthful dinosaurs busy a dissimilar environmental place to their parents so they weren't in competition for the similar sources of food as they ate smaller plants or preyed on lesser size animals. In fact, we see modern crocodiles following this model baby crocodiles begin by feeding off insects and tadpoles before graduating on to fish and then bigger mammals.

Friday, January 4, 2013

New Dinosaur had memorable Smile

A new dinosaur unearthed in Wyoming had such great teeth that its jaws continually looked to be smiling an enormous grin.

Kaatedocus had a set of pencil-like teeth in the face part of the gag," Mateus explained. "They were modified for eating plant life. As for many sauropods, because those teeth were not modified for chewing, Kaatedocus possibly ingested gastroliths or gizzard stones."

Kaatedocus lived 150 million years ago, throughout the Late Jurassic era. A comparative of Diplodocus, this dinosaur lived earlier and was slighter. The huge bulk of species from this dinosaur family come from the Jurassic Morrison Formation of the Western United States. In contrast, this new dinosaur was found extra north, signifying that consequent generations gradually moved southward over time.

Mateus and a worldwide team studied the well-preserved relics of Kaatedocus. Often quite a tad of creative allows is necessary during reconstructions, but in this case, even the skull makes clear the dinosaurs "smiling" look.

In terms of the new Wyoming discovery, Mateus said, "This class is lesser and slightly older than other dinosaurs of the equal family, it is significant for understanding the development of all Diplodocus-like dinosaurs."