Fossil of Ant-Eating Dinosaur Discovered In China 64
thomst writes "Charles Q. Choi of LiveScience reports that a farmer in southern Henan Province in China has dug up the first known ant-eating dinosaur, a half-meter-long theropod (the dinosaur family to which T. Rex belongs), whose fossilized remains were described as 'fairly intact'. The 83- to 89-million-year-old pygmy dinosaur has been named named Xixianykus zhangi by Xig Xu, De-you Wang, Corwin Sullivan, David Hone, Feng-lu Han, Rong-hao Yan, and Fu-ming Du, whose paper on the critter, A basal parvicursorine (Theropoda: Alvarezsauridae) from the Upper Cretaceous of China, was published in the March 29 issue of Zootaxa (the abstract is available in PDF format for free, the full article is paywall-protected.)"
Ant eating dinosaur? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Ant eating dinosaur? (Score:4, Insightful)
Hey now, there's no call for insults like that. For all you know, he could be dumb white trailer trash.
Or, he might not be dumb at all, and simply an unfortunate victim of the American public school system.
Re:Ant eating dinosaur? (Score:4, Informative)
he could be dumb white trailer trash.
The proper name is "cracker".
Or, he might not be dumb at all, and simply an unfortunate victim of the American public school system.
I believe the proper terminology for that is "functionally idiotic". Not dumb, but you can't tell the difference.
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Whoah! Huge slam on anteaters out of nowhere!
Re:Ant eating dinosaur? (Score:5, Informative)
Ancestral Insects are much, much older than dinosaurs, and have a much more diverse and interesting history. Unfortunately, as in the modern era, if it's not a vertebrate it doesn't have the national-geographic wow factor.
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Photo (Score:4, Funny)
Missing from the summary: A photo [google.com] of the ant-eating dinosaur.
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About a decade ago a kid by the name of Calvin dug up a skull of one of these. It looked like this. [wikipedia.org]
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Actually, somewhere between a decade and a half to two decades ago, as sad as it is to think of it as that long ago...
Ant-eating? or Termite eating? (Score:2, Interesting)
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Slow down son, not eating ants [wikipedia.org]? I guess by 30k ants per day they mean termites. Extant means present *today* btw.
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He's probably thinking of the aardvark, numbat, echidna, or pangolin, which are all colloquially known as "anteaters" but don't eat ants and aren't in the same family.
To be fair, anteaters do eat mostly termites, not ants.
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> or pangolin, which are all colloquially known as "anteaters"
> but don't eat ants and aren't in the same family.
Wait, the word "anteater" has another meaning besides being a synonym for "aardvark"?
I did not know that. I've always been under the impression that the two words were different names for the same animal. That thing in the "anteater" article looks more like a sloth. Every drawing of an "anteater" that I've ever seen looks a lot
Oh, then another thing you probably didn't know (Score:4, Informative)
I doubt it's been slashdotted... (Score:1)
Re:I doubt it's been slashdotted... (Score:4, Informative)
No, Yahoo is blocking direct access to the print version of the article. Remove "print" from the end of the URL and it will work.
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U can haz link (Score:3, Informative)
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Am I the only one that .... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Believe what you like, but some trivial homework will show you Zootaxa is a very real journal (it's the leading publisher of new taxa in the world).
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And for some reason they can't do an April fools joke on their closest to April 1 publication???
Of course a issue renouncing evolution and embracing creationism would be a better joke.
Nature should do that.
Ob: GB 1st (Score:1)
Read my lips.
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Luckily you can always trust that the BBC [bbc.co.uk] doesn't muck around like this.
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Except, oops, how about that, you can't see their 'science' without paying. An accident? I doubt it. Everyone should assume about these charlatans and others: if you need to go through a paywall to the actual details of someone's evidence and research, it's probably a scam or gross incompetence (in the latter case, why bother reading the rest since incompetence is thus proven.) Results from "real" scientists are accessible from, e.g., Google; it takes active steps to maintain obcurity to avoid this.
Good thing you posted AC, after giving away that you've never seen an abstract in your life. Most scientific journals are not free. And Google is not the world.
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Exactly, here's a real scientist [timecube.com] whose work is completely available on teh Intergoogle. For free.
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I would rather these people be paid via public funds, private donations, trinke
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I for one welcome our new insect eating overlords (Score:2)
However, weren't all insects ridiculously large back then as compared to now? Or am I wrong to base my knowledge of prehistoric times off of time machine chose your own adventure books.
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This is biology we're talking about, "all" almost never holds. Most insect diversity then (like now) was probably under 1cm in size.
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The thing between Death's triumphant digits was a fly from the dawn of time. It was the fly in the primordial soup. It had bred on mammoth turds. It wasn't a fly that bangs on window panes, it was a fly that drills through walls.
- from Mort by Terry Pratchett
Paywall for April Fools? (Score:2)
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Why use a paywall for an April Fools joke?
Because a fool and his money are easily parted.
Question (Score:3, Funny)
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That's nothing. One time I saw a man eating chicken.
Every time someone farts in china... (Score:2)
... it gets covered in Slashdot.
Check your /. settings (Score:3, Informative)
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Thanks!
WOW (Score:2, Funny)
A dinosaur named Xixianykus zhangi, discovered by Xig Xu!
Sorry, I don't have anything to add to this discussion. I just wanted to say Xixianykus zhangi and Xig Xu again.
Xixianykus zhangi!
Xig Xu!
Okay, I think I'm done. Now, to find some way to clean all this spittle off my monitor....
Anti-eating dinosaur (Score:2)
Does he have fast? Or eats backwards?
Sounds like a cool pet (Score:2)
A half-meter long T-Rex that eats ants? I want one. Get those scientists working on a clone now!
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They would, but I ate the mosquito that bit me you insensitive clod.
And In Other News... (Score:3, Funny)
Paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence of a dinosaur that bitches at its mate when he gets home late from work and smelling of beer. The creature apparently has a tongue that's hinged in the middle and designed to wag at both ends simultaneously, and jaw muscles better fitted to an animal three times its size.
I have no intention of attempting to assign a scientific name to this creature.
I want to live.
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The name is "Darling".
I thought you said you wanted to live ; better learn that one fast!
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I stand corrected! Thank you for that valuable survival advice. Things could have turned ugly.
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Hmmm ... that raises prospects. The "Darling" issue, combined with Heisenberg's principle. There are jokes to be made from that combination.
But I want to get rid of this Slashroulette shit first.
Too early in the morning (Score:1)
"So that's why they died out" I thought. Only 47 comments - this must truly be bigger news. Or... or am I really the only one who made the connection? Dreams of fame, suddenly so close to reality...
I was severely disappointed when re-read it carefully and the imaginary "i" after "Ant" vanished.
missing link found! (Score:1)
Along with IDA, nothing can stand in the way of proof that humans evolved from apes anymore.
Hey, look! I hit something! (Score:2)