Museum IDs New Species of Dinosaur 79
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"
Re:"Nubbins" (Score:2, Insightful)
Nubbin == third nipple (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oh no he didn't (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oh no he didn't (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 saying it's a work of fiction.
*sigh* I guess it's easier to believe in a fairy tale than in reality.
'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:'Lo and behold' (Score:3, Insightful)