~ Dinosaur Crossing ~ © Timothy S. March
~ The Dreadnoughtus ~
A supermassive dinosaur that would have weighed as much as 60 small cars has been found in Argentina, where it likely perished in a bog some 77 million years ago, paleontologists said Thursday, September 4.
Dubbed Dreadnoughtus schrani (the 'Dreadnoughtus' part coming from "fear nothing" in old English), the long-necked lizard would have measured 26 meters (85 feet) from nose to tail and weighed some 60 tons – about as much as seven Tyrannosaurus rex put together.
And the giant wasn't even fully grown when it got bogged down in a flooded plain, where it died next to a smaller companion, researchers reported in the journal Scientific Reports.
"With a body the size of a house, the weight of a herd of elephants, and a weaponized (9-meter, muscled) tail, Dreadnoughtus would have feared nothing," study co-author Kenneth Lacovara of Drexel University in Philadelphia said of the mighty beast.
MASSIVE ANIMAL. Rendering of the massive Dreadnoughtus schrani in life. Dreadnoughtus had a 37-foot-long neck, 30-foot tail, and weighed an estimated 65 tons, making it the most massive land animal whose size can be confidently calculated. Illustration by Jennifer Hall/Drexel University
The fossilized skeleton is the most complete yet found in the category of super-sized, plant-eating dinosaurs called Titanosaurs– which makes it the largest land animal for which a weight has been calculated with such a degree of accuracy.
The find comprised over 70% of the types of bones in the dinosaur's body – 45% of its total skeleton. There were no skull bones.
Paleontologists uncovered most of the vertebrae from the lizard's tail, a neck vertebra with a diameter of over one yard (0.9 meters), ribs, toes, a claw, a section of jaw and a tooth, and nearly all the bones from its four limbs, including a humerus (upper arm bone) and a femur (thigh bone) over six feet tall.
The femur and humerus are key to calculating the mass of extinct four-legged animals.
"Because the Dreadnoughtus type specimen includes both these bones, its weight can be estimated with confidence," said a Drexel University statement.
"It is by far the best example we have of any of the most giant creatures to ever walk the planet," added Lacovara, who discovered the skeleton in southern Patagonia in 2005 and oversaw its four-year excavation.
Dino Misfortune, Science's Luck
To sustain its massive bulk, Dreadnoughtus would have had to eat vast quantities of plants growing in the temperate forest on the continent's southern tip.
"I imagine their day consists largely of standing in one place," said Lacovara.
"You have this 37-foot-long (11-meter) neck balanced by a 30-foot-long (9-meter) tail in the back. Without moving your legs, you have access to a giant feeding envelope of trees and green ferns. You spend an hour or so clearing out this patch that has had thousands of calories in it, and then you take three steps over to the right and spend the next hour clearing out that patch."
The dimensions of all previously discovered supermassive dinosaurs had been pieced together from relatively fragmentary fossil remains.
Prior to Dreadnoughtus, another Patagonian giant, Elaltitan, held the title for the dinosaur with the greatest calculable weight, at 43 tons.
MEGA DINO. Dreadnoughtus schrani was substantially more massive than any other supermassive dinosaur for which mass can be accurately calculated. Image courtesy Lacovara Lab/Drexel University; Size and weight comparisons citations at http://bit.ly/1oI5acS
Argentinosaurus, also from Argentina, was thought to be of a comparable or even greater mass than Dreadnoughtus, and longer, at about 37m.
But Argentinosaurus is known only from a half-dozen vertebrae in its mid-back, a shinbone and a few other fragments but no upper limb bones, said the researchers.
An adult Dreadnoughtus would likely have been too large to fear any predators, but would have made a great feast for scavengers after their death, the team added.
They discovered several teeth of small predatory and scavenging dinosaurs at the excavation site, which also included a secondDreadnoughtus skeleton, though smaller and much less complete.
From the preservation of the skeletons, the team concluded theDreadnoughtus pair was buried soon after death, but not before their carnivore cousins took a few bites.
"These two animals were buried quickly after a river flooded and broke through its natural levee, turning the ground into something like quicksand," said Lacovara.
"The rapid and deep burial of the Dreadnoughtus type specimen accounts for its extraordinary completeness.
"It's misfortune was our luck."
Source: Rappler
~ Pegomastax Africanus ~
A new, tiny dinosaur with vampire-like fangs devoured ... plants?
So says a new study of Pegomastax africanus, a 2-foot-long (0.6-meter-long) heterodontosaur that lived about 200 million years ago. (Test your dinosaur IQ.)
P. africanus small, fanged dinosaur species that were "scampering around between the toes of other dinosaurs at the dawn of the dinosaur era," said study author Paul Sereno, a National Geographic Society explorer-in-residence. (National Geographic News is a division of the Society.)
Covered in porcupine-like quills and sporting a blunt, parrot-like beak, P. africanus would've looked like a "strange little bird," said Sereno, a paleontologist with the University of Chicago.
But its fangs, Sereno argues, were more like those of the piglike peccary (picture) or fanged deer, or water chevrotain (video)—modern-day, plant-eating mammals that use their teeth for self-defense and foraging.
The species, he added, would have lived along forested rivers in southern Africa around the time the supercontinent Pangaea had just begun to split into the northern and southern landmasses.
Reconstructing The Oddball
While preparing a comprehensive analysis of the little-known heterodontosaurs, Sereno identified P. africanus from fossils at Harvard University, which had been collected in South Africa in the 1960s.
To find out what the newfound dinosaur did with its sharp fangs, Sereno then reassembled P. africanus' jaw and teeth. He compared the reconstruction to jaws and teeth of both meat-eating dinosaurs and modern plant-eating mammals with fangs.
Sereno discovered that P. africanus' fangs were very similar to those of fanged deer and peccaries, which use their fangs in self-defense and competition for mates, he said.
Supporting this theory, microscopic analysis of P. africanus' fang enamel revealed wear and breakage consistent with sparring.
The researcher suggested too that the cheek teeth in P. africanus' upper and lower jaws worked like self-sharpening scissors for shearing plant parts, as detailed in the study, published online Wednesday in the journal ZooKeys.
Tiny Dinosaur Ahead Of Its Time
Finding a new species of heterodontosaur is not "all that noteworthy," Hans-Dieter Sues, a vertebrate paleontologist at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., said by email.
"But [Sereno's] comprehensive review of the entire group of these odd little dinosaurs is a landmark contribution," said Sues, who wasn't involved in the study. (Read about bizarre dinosaurs in National Geographic magazine.)
In particular, Sues is impressed that Sereno "worked out how these dinosaurs chewed their food, which helps understand their peculiar, molar-like teeth."
What's more, the study revealed that P. africanus' sophisticated jaw structure was ahead of its time, Sereno noted. Such structures evolved again millions of years later in mammals.
If the housecat-size dinosaur lived today, he quipped, "it would be a nice pet—if you could train it not to nip you."
Via: National Geographic