New Dinosaur Species Found In China 139
jones_supa writes "A previously unknown dinosaur has been identified from fossils dug up in China and has been nicknamed as 'T-Rex's cousin.' The gigantic creature roamed North America and east Asia between about 65 million and 99 million years ago. Named in honour of Zhucheng as Zhuchentyrannus magnus, this animal was about 11 metres long, 4 metres tall and it weighed about 6 tonnes. The research team was led by Dr. David Hone, from University College Dublin school of biology and environmental science."
Took a while to hit the FP (Score:5, Informative)
This story's a few days old. Mind you, that's still not bad.
Anyways, the interesting part is that this new dino is only a little smaller than the largest T Rex ever found, making it quite possible larger specimins will be found. In turn, this raises the possibility that we're nowhere near as close to the top of the dino chain as we'd previously thought.
Having said that, we know T Rex had hollow bones essentially the same design and internal composition as modern birds. Now, it is true that the tallest bird that ever lived (the Giant Moa) was 13' tall, rather taller than a T Rex. This is important as a heavy weight on the top of tall spindly legs is going to generate rather different loads than a heavy weight much closer to the ground. It is also true that the heaviest dino, according to some estimates, may have been upwards of 20 tonnes. Clearly, this design of bone is capable of rather suprising feats under the right conditions. However, the T Rex is now thought by some to have been quite the Olympic sprinter, not a slow plodder like the Moa.
It doesn't take much to realize that if, indeed, that was the case that you simply can't up the tonnage to the limits the bones could take by standing still. They'd shatter long before you got to that point. Which means that if T Rex' ilk were indeed the sprinters claimed, you really are very close to the upper limits, ergo if the new cousin is found to be substantially larger, then T Rex was proportionally slower.
Same height and weight as an elephant (Score:4, Informative)
Pronunciation (Score:2, Informative)
For those of you struggling to figure out just exactly how you're supposed to pronounce this creatures name..
Zh is a tough sound to make for English speakers. The h represents aspiration of the z, and the z is pronounced as a 'ds' sound. Mix ds with a j, and you're pretty much there.
Fucking hell, why did they have to name this thing with -the- most difficult sound in the entire Chinese language?!
Re:Interesting a European was the lead discoverer (Score:5, Informative)
There have been a bunch of interesting paleontological discoveries by Chinese scientists in the past few years. These were reported in western media [reuters.com]. Generally it's not surprising if they end up attracting good people from elsewhere and if there weren't scientists from other countries getting involved then you would begin to be concerned. International collaboration is a crucial element of scientific credibility. China probably (rightly) wants that more than it wants credit for any particular dinosaurs. From a long term economic point of view this should probably be more important in China's attempt to overtake the USA economically. There is no way that research like this is going to be properly funded by private companies but you need it to get the really bright fundamental science people to come and visit and that, long term, is what drives real invention, not just thousands of patents on minor variations of the same idea.
Re:North America? (Score:3, Informative)
The gigantic creature roamed North America and east Asia
Reading comprehension failure? Also, try this. [wikipedia.org]
Re:Pronunciation (Score:3, Informative)
Are you suggesting that English speakers should use the Mandarin pronounciation? That's insane. Where'd you get that idea? English speakers can't do it. It just gets pronounced zzzzzh. Try giving Mandarin speakers a name like Worthington or Covington, there is no way that they can pronouce it correctly, nor should they be expected to.
P.S. zh is not the most difficult sound in Mandarin for English speakers. The worst are j, q, x, and especially r. I have known several long-term residents of China who speak Chinese much better than I do, and they still say "shay-shay" instead of "xiexie". Your advice on pronounciation is listed among the common misconceptions [sinosplice.com]. Please stop giving strange, creative, and wrong instructions on how to pronounce Mandarin's sounds. Read this page to learn how to pronouce zh correctly [sinosplice.com]. People who will never speak a word of Mandarin in their lives don't need to worry about it.
I'm sure the name is just a result of the scientist trying to be a proper multiculturalist. It is suitable that the dinosaur be named with this way, it is good behavior and will go over well with his academic colleagues. If the plebes can't pronounce it, fuck 'em.