Plesiosaur – Gives Single Birth in Water

Plesiosaur a kind of dinosaur is defined as one which has a giant, long-necked swimming reptile and has been lived for a period of about 78 million years ago. It is a kind of carnivorous marine reptile.

After the detection of plesiosaurs, it is said that it resembles a snake threaded through the shell of a turtle, even though they had no shell. Their skeletons were first found in England by Mary Anning before the period of early 19th century. And it is the first fossil vertebrates to be illustrated by science.

This unique dinosaur has determined a long-held secrecy about the animals and how they reproduced.

As per the scientists those marine livings of ancient seas such as modern whales and dolphins are actually gave birth to their newborns beneath the water one at a time, and could have cared for them much as modern whales do.

Many creatures in the marine reptile world of that period shows that they gave birth to a dozen or more at a time but plesiosaur is the first to show proof of a single birth and only in the water, according to the paleontologists.

New species of Dinosaur found in India

U.S. and Indian scientists said Wednesday they have exposed a new carnivorous dinosaur species in India after finding bones in the western part of the country. The new species of dinosaur was named Rajasaurus narmadensis, or "Regal reptile from the Narmada," after the Narmada River region where the bones were found. The dinosaurs were between 25-30 feet long, had a horn above their skulls, were comparatively heavy and walked on two legs, scientists said. They preyed on long-necked herbivorous dinosaurs on the Indian subcontinent for the Cretaceous period at the end of the dinosaur age, 65 million years ago.

"It's tremendous to be able to see this dinosaur which lived as the age of dinosaurs came to a close," said Paul Sereno, a paleontologist at the University of Chicago. "It was an important predator that was related to species on continental Africa, Madagascar and South America."A model of the assembled skull was presented Wednesday by the American scientists to their counterparts from Punjab University in northern India and the Geological Survey of India in a Bombay news conference.


Scientists said they expect the discovery will help explain the extinction of the dinosaurs and the shifting of the continents - how India separated from Africa, Madagascar, Australia and Antarctica and collided with Asia. The dinosaur bones were discovered throughout the past 18 years by Indian scientists Suresh Srivastava of the Geological Survey of India and Ashok Sahni, a paleontologist at Punjab University.

When the bones were scrutinized, "we realized we had a partial skeleton of an undiscovered species," Sereno said. The scientists said they consider the Rajasaurus roamed the Southern Hemisphere land masses of present-day Madagascar, Africa and South America. "People don't understand dinosaurs are the only large-bodied animal that lived, evolved and died at a time when all continents were united," Sereno said.

The cause of the dinosaurs' death is still debated by scientists. The Rajasaurus discovery may give crucial clues, Sereno said. India has seen quite a few paleontological discoveries newly. In 1997, villagers exposed about 300 fossilized dinosaur eggs in Pisdura, 440 miles northeast of Bombay that Indian scientists said were laid by four-legged, long-necked vegetarian creatures. Indian scientists said the dinosaur embryos in the eggs may have suffocated at the period of volcanic eruptions.

Era of Thalattosaur Skeleton

Thalattosaur Skeleton

Thalattosaurs an ocean lizard which lived during the mid-late of Triassic period Belongs to a group of marine reptiles. Its fossil skeleton which was 20 million year old was found in Alaska along the sea shore of a low tide near Tongass National Forest. It is very unique that one could not expect to see on a day at the beach.

According to International Business Times, Alaskan scientists determined that the skeleton was of a rare marine creature and being sunken in water and rocks, called Thalattosaurs. The last survive of this creature was from about 200 million years ago.

The next is about scientists who are continuing to dig out the remaining of the fossils along with finding the skull which may be hidden deep into the beach rocks. They were able to excavate two huge slabs of rocks with fossils embedded. The digged slabs were sent to a museum lab in order to chip out the fragile bones in trust of enlightening one of the most complete Thalattosaur skeletons yet discovered.

Dr Jim Baichtal, a geologist and part of the discovery team, said The Daily Mail that finding the skeleton was a total surprise.

Two-legged Dinosaurs were peace-loving veggies

Most violent two-legged Dinosaurs became peaceable vegan, according to new research, writes Geoffrey Lean.

Scientists at Chicago's Field Museum studied the diet of 90 species of theropods – colloquially called "predatory dinosaurs", which in a lot of cases became the ancestors of modern birds – examining the teeth, fossilised dung (the mind boggles) and stones in the stomach that had been used to grind vegetation.


They establish that even though the therapods' bodies still made them ideal hunter-killers – which is how leading scientists had believed they remained until they became extinct – most species, in fact, turned vegetarian.

"Somewhere on the line to birds," says the familiar researcher, Dr Lindsay Zanno, "predatory dinosaurs went soft." Ultimately, they developed toothless beaks.

Another study, by the University of Texas, augments the image of the peace-loving dinosaur by challenging another conventional view – which they took over the world by driving out other animals. Instead, it seems, they were "humbler, more opportunistic creatures" that took benefit of a mass extinction 200 million years ago. "They didn't invade the neighborhood," says Prof Tim Rowe. "They waited for the inhabitants to leave and then moved in when no one was watching."

Skeletons of dinosaurs sell for $2.75m

The skeletons of three large dinosaurs are among a treasure trove of natural history artifacts that have sold at a sole auction in Dallas.

The quality stars of the Heritage Auctions bidding were a "fighting pair" of dinosaur skeletons that sold to a museum for $2.75 million (£1.7m), and an enormous, 19-foot-long triceratops that fetched $657,250 (£400,000) from a private collector.

The sale included more than 200 items, including meteorites, minerals and other fossils.


The fighting dinosaurs - an allosaurus and a stegosaurus - were offered mutually because of their discovery in a Wyoming quarry with the jaw of the allosaurus wrapped around the leg of the stegosaurus, leading to speculation that the two were engaged in a predator-prey battle.

Heritage Auctions declined to reveal which museum picked up the pair, though the organisation did say the museum was outside the United States.

"I'm ecstatic that 'the fighting pair' establishes such a great home," David Herskowitz, director of natural history at Heritage Auctions, said in a statement. "These are important and iconic Jurassic-era specimens, which science did not even know existed together at the same time, and now they will be going to a final end where the public will get to enjoy them and where they will be of maximum benefit to science."

In Argentina Pint-sized ancestor of Tyrannosaurus rex was discovered

The ancestor of Tyrannosaurus rex, who lived when dinosaurs were the underdogs 230 million years ago, has been discovered by scientists in Argentina.

Eodromaeus was four feet long from nose to tail-tip and weighed just 10 to 15 pounds.

Nonetheless the two-legged dinosaur predated the biggest and most fierce land predators that ever lived, including T. rex.

Fossil bones of two of the creatures were unearthing side-by-side at a desert site known as the Valley of the Moon in northern Argentina.

Researchers pieced together a near-complete skeleton of the new species which they illustrate today in the journal Science.

Study leader Dr Paul Sereno, from the University of Chicago, US, described: "It really is the earliest
look we have at the long line of meat eaters that would eventually culminate in Tyrannosaurus rex near the end of the dinosaur era.”