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Museum IDs New Species of Dinosaur
Posted by
Hemos
on Mon Mar 05, 2007 10:43 AM
from the dinosuars-rock dept.
from the dinosuars-rock dept.
Uryugen writes "A new dinosaur species was a plant-eater with yard-long horns over its eyebrows, suggesting an evolutionary middle step between older dinosaurs with even larger horns and the small-horned creatures that followed, experts said.
The dinosaur's horns, thick as a human arm, are like those of triceratops — which came 10 million years later. However, this animal belonged to a subfamily that usually had bony nubbins a few inches long above their eyes"
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A new species of dinosaur discovered in Utah's Grand Staircase was only recently released to the public. Dubbed Gryposaurus Monumentensis (derived from a combination of "hook-beaked lizard" and a tip of the hat to the discovery location) scientists estimate this duck-billed dino could have had as many as 800 teeth in his massive mouth. "While the diet is unknown, given the considerable size of the creature, the massive teeth and jaws are thought to have been used to slice up large amounts of tough, fibrous plant material. The teeth may hold important clues the dinosaur's eating habits. The Utah museum plans to study the composition of the dinosaur teeth, which when compared to other plant-eating dinosaurs from the Kaiparowits Formation, will help researchers decipher differences in diet."
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I For One (Score:3, Funny)
Two Responses (Score:3, Funny)
Humans got the evolutionary shaft.
Human: "Oooh, look at me! I've got an enlarged Broca's region in my frontal lobe! DE-FENSE!"
Zuniceratops: "Oh yeah? Well how about this--BAM, the ole' horn in the eye!"
Good thing we're separated by millions of years...
</evolutionist's response>
--
<creationist's response>
For thousands of years, lawyers have been laying the foundation for the greatest devil inspired hoax to grace God's earth
</creationist's response>
Re:Two Responses (Score:5, Funny)
Zuniceratops: "Oh yeah? Well how about this--BAM, the ole' horn in the eye!"
Human: Oh, we have those, too. They're smaller, but they travel faster from these bow things we invented, and we can hit you from 100 feet away.
(Arrow "thwip" sound)
Zuniceratops: Ow! My eye!
(Arrow "thwip" sound)
Zuniceratops: Ow! My other eye!
Human: Ha ha ha! We're going to eat you!
Zuniceratops: Noooooo!
Human: And use your balls as an aphrodesiac.
Zuniceratops: OK, now that was unnecessary.
Human: And *these* are spears!
(woosh!)
Zuniceratops: Argh!
Parent
# new species == # new grad students (Score:2)
Nubbin == third nipple (Score:3, Insightful)
Horns and eyebrows (Score:2, Informative)
Fair enough. (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Also (Score:2, Funny)
A New Source of Oil (Score:5, Funny)
Cool, a new source of oil!
And you guys said it wasn't renewable. See, that's why I like science. They are always finding new species. More oil. More oil. I'm going to go buy a Hummer.
Dino-Poop Power for the People.
Wait...Oh, I see the flaw. Nevermind.
'Lo and behold' (Score:3, Insightful)
Ryan named the new dinosaur Albertaceratops nesmoi, after the region and Cecil Nesmo, a rancher near Manyberries, Alberta, who has helped fossil hunters.
The creature was about 20 feet long and lived 78 million years ago.
The oldest known horned dinosaur in North America is called Zuniceratops. It lived 12 million years before Ryan's find, and also had large horns.
That makes the newly found creature an intermediate between older forms with large horns and later small-horned relatives, said State of Utah paleontologist Jim Kirkland, who with Douglas Wolfe identified Zuniceratops in New Mexico in 1998. He predicted then that something like Ryan's find would turn up.
"Lo and behold, evolutionary theory actually works," he said. - Lo and behold? We knew that evolution works for a long long time now, but does anyone know whether these remains can be used for DNA sequencing so an evolution map could be setup for such creatures?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
When I read the headline... (Score:4, Funny)
I've obviously been getting involved in too many evolution-related debates.
Re:When I read the headline... (Score:5, Funny)
-
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Oh no he didn't (Score:5, Funny)
Not at all. The fossils are real, but the dinosaurs co-existed with humans relatively recently, probably between the time when God created the Earth and the middle ages - and some dinosaurs probably still exist today. I can prove all of this because it's written in an old book. It's also written plainly in the Dinosaur article on Conservapedia [conservapedia.com].
(I'm thinking of signing up as a Conservapedia editor purely to expand on articles like these.)
Parent
Re:Oh no he didn't (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, Wikipedia are no-longer the least authoritative source of information on the internet.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As if to reinforce the continuing spread of misinformation, there is a christian theater not too far from me which is running a production showing men and dinosaurs living side-by-side. Sadly, they're not s
Re: (Score:3)
The biggest reason for the refutation is that the majority of these claims are based on the false stance that the Earth i
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Its gratifying every time one of these "missing links" is found. My favorite is probably the lobe-finned fishes:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/04/04 05_060405_fish_2.htm/ [nationalgeographic.com] http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/04/ph otogalleries/tetrapod/index.html/ [nationalgeographic.com]
Of course the creationists will just deny these anyway, but then again, they would never argued about this for so long if they were rational to begin with.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oh no he didn't (Score:4, Informative)
Nice fine nonetheless, here are the "non-missing links":
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/04/0
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/04/p
Parent
More links (Score:3, Informative)
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/11/11 20_021120_raptor.html [nationalgeographic.com]
Creationists try to deny this too, but there's concrete, physical evidence so you'd be a fool to deny it right?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You too, huh? I feel the same. It's one of the most surprising things I know. It's just baffling. I'm not even sure I believe it -- it just seems so far-fetched.
Yet amazingly -- it's true! They don't have horns! Unless you glue one or more horns on! Which is very dangerous to you *and* the whale, trust me on that.