earthstory reblogged
Forbidden meat - Rhodochrosite crystal
source: Elle and Zeine Designs
The meat shaped stone Carved during China's last dynasty (1644-1911) to resemble a piece of fatty pork with its crackling fried in soy sauce, this piece of jasper has been cleverly used by the carver. The surface of the skin has been stained to resemble skin, veins and hair follicles carved in. The piece is one of the treasures of the National Palace Museum in Taiwan. Loz Image credit: National Palace Museum
Source: facebook.com
- natgeo Video by @bertiegregory. A Sri Lankan leopard sizes up to a huge 3m/10ft mugger crocodile. In the hours leading up to this standoff, this leopard had been feeding on the buffalo calf kill pictured in this frame. This attracted the attention of a group of mugger crocodiles in a nearby pond. Keen on stealing the leopards meal, one of the crocodiles slowly walked towards the leopard and the kill. Considering the size and armour of this crocodile, I was sure the leopard would run away. I was wrong. In fact, it did the exact opposite stepping over the kill and bluff charging the crocodile. Follow @bertiegregory to see the climax of this face-off when the leopard started throwing punches!
The Mesozoic Park: Metriacanthosaurus
Common name: Metriacanthosaurus (met-ree-a-kan-tho-sore-us) Size: up to 8 m long (26 ft) Age: Mid Jurassic (~160 million years ago) Geographic range: Europe Liked: Disliked: Taxonomy: Animalia > Chordata > Dinosauria > Theropoda > Metriacanthosauridae
We don't know much about this big carnivore... other than the fact it was a big carnivore. The little we know about this beast has been meticulously pieced together from fragments of fossil skeletons, mostly found in English clay pits.
We know it was medium sized (for a big dino-predator... still 8 m long!), and had elongated vertebrae along its back. These would have given it a pronounced ridge along its spine. Some suggest it may have been an ancestor of the spinosaurs (https://goo.gl/9RTLFy, https://goo.gl/JWrvMH), a group of fish-eating crocodile-like dinosaurs that appeared over the next 80 million years or so, and played the villain in 'Jurassic Park III'.
Metriacanthosaurus hasn't played much of a part in Jurassic Park yet - there was a name label on some cloned eggs in the original, but no actual sightings. It's slated for an appearance in Jurassic World.
- OB
Image Credit: http://goo.gl/OA8Y5x
This article is a part of our "Mesozoic Park" series that is leading up to the release of Jurassic World. For more information, please see our introductory post at: http://on.fb.me/1ELwHW5 or if you already know about the series but missed a few articles you can find links to the first 10 posts at "Update #1," here: http://on.fb.me/1ED1tOH posts 11-20 at Update #2, here: http://on.fb.me/1AsdbPx, and posts 21-30 at Update #3 here: http://on.fb.me/1FyJt8v.
Source: facebook.com
The meat shaped stone Carved during China's last dynasty (1644-1911) to resemble a piece of fatty pork with its crackling fried in soy sauce, this piece of jasper has been cleverly used by the carver. The surface of the skin has been stained to resemble skin, veins and hair follicles carved in. The piece is one of the treasures of the National Palace Museum in Taiwan. Loz Image credit: National Palace Museum