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Tag Archives: dinosaur
Researchers look a dinosaur in its remarkably preserved face
Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology
Borealopelta mitchelli found its way back into the sunlight in 2017, millions of years after it had died. This armored dinosaur is so magnificently preserved that we can see what it looked like in life. Almost the entire animal—the skin, the armor that coats its skin, the spikes along its side, most of its body and feet, even its face—survived fossilization. It is, according to Dr. Donald Henderson, curator of dinosaurs at the Royal Tyrrell Museum, a one-in-a-billion find.
Beyond its remarkable preservation, this dinosaur is an important key to understanding aspects of Early Cretaceous ecology, and it shows how this species may have lived within its environment. Since its remains were discovered, scientists have studied its anatomy, its armor, and even what it ate in its last days, uncovering new and unexpected insight into an animal that went extinct approximately 100 million years ago.
Down by the sea
Borealopelta is a nodosaur, a type of four-legged ankylosaur with a straight tail rather than a tail club. Its finding in 2011 in an ancient marine environment was a surprise, as the animal was terrestrial.
A land-based megaherbivore preserved in an ancient seabed is not as uncommon as one might think. A number of other ankylosaurs have been preserved in this manner, albeit not as well as Borealopelta. Scientists suspect its carcass may have been carried from a river to the sea in a flooding event; it may have bobbed at the surface upside-down for a few days before sinking into the ocean depths.
It would have been kept at the surface by what’s referred to as “bloat-and-float,” as the buildup of postmortem gasses would keep it buoyant. Modeling done by Henderson indicates its heavy armor would have rolled it onto its back, a position he suspects may have prevented ocean predators from scavenging its carcass.
Once the gasses that kept it floating were expelled, Borealopelta sank to the ocean floor, landing on its back.
“We can see it went in water deeper than 50 meters because it was preserved with a particular mineral called glauconite, which is a green phosphate mineral. And it only forms in cooler temperatures in water deeper than 50 meters,” explained Dr. Henderson.
He also told Ars that this environment probably also discouraged scavenging, saying, “It was probably a region where [long-necked] plesiosaurs and big fish didn’t like to go. It was too cold and too dark, and [there was] nothing to eat. And there were very few trace fossils in the sediments around it. So there wasn’t much in the way of worms and crustaceans and bivalves and things in there to further digest it. It was just a nice set of conditions in the seabed that had very low biological activity that led to that preservation.”
Unmet expectations
But none of this was known when the animal was discovered. Although it’s not entirely unusual to find dinosaur remains in marine environments, it’s also not very common. Henderson and Darren Tanke, also from the Royal Tyrrell Museum, walked onto the site fully anticipating that they would excavate an ancient marine reptile.
The two had consulted on fossil discoveries at other open-pit mines within the province. However, this was their first visit to Suncor, a mine in the northeast of Alberta, Canada. Everything about this mine is enormous. Massive machinery is constantly in motion, scooping out rock, sand, and gravel from surrounding cliffs, while other equipment clears it away, all with the goal of uncovering the deeper oil sands for fuel.
“It’s just unbelievable, the scale of the place,” Dr. Henderson said. “And it goes 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.”
Despite the pace of operations, one particular shovel operator, Shawn Funk, happened to notice something after taking a big chunk out of the cliff. It was thanks to him and several people within Suncor that operations stopped in that area and the Royal Tyrrell was notified.
Scientists unearth megaraptors, feathered dinosaur fossils in Chile’s Patagonia
Jan 16 (Reuters) – Scientists in Chile’s Patagonia region are unearthing the southernmost dinosaur fossils recorded outside Antarctica, including remains of megaraptors that would have dominated the area’s food chain before their mass extinction.
Fossils of megaraptors, a carnivorous dinosaur that inhabited parts of South America during the Cretaceous period some 70 million years ago, were found in sizes up to 10 meters long, according to the Journal of South American Earth Sciences.
“We were missing a piece,” Marcelo Leppe, director of the Chilean Antarctic Institute (INACH), told Reuters. “We knew where there were large mammals, there would also be large carnivores, but we hadn’t found them yet.”
The remains, recovered from Chile’s far south Rio de las Chinas Valley in the Magallanes Basin between 2016 and 2020, also include some unusual remains of unenlagia, velociraptor-like dinosaurs which likely lived covered in feathers.
The specimens, according to University of Chile researcher Jared Amudeo, had some characteristics not present in Argentine or Brazilian counterparts.
[1/5] A man works at the area where scientists discovered megaraptor fossils at ‘Guido’ hill in the Chilean Patagonia area, close to Torres del Paine park, in Magallanes and Antarctic region, Chile in this undated handout photo provided by the Instituto Chileno Antartico on January 16, 2023. Instituto Chileno Antartico/Handout via REUTERS
“It could be a new species, which is very likely, or belong to another family of dinosaurs that are closely related,” he said, adding more conclusive evidence is needed.
The studies also shed more light on the conditions of the meteorite impact on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula that may have triggered the dinosaurs’ extinction some 65 million years ago.
INACH’s Leppe pointed to a sharp drop in temperatures over present-day Patagonia and waves of intense cold lasting up to several thousand years, in contrast to the extremely warm climate that prevailed for much of the Cretaceous period.
“The enormous variation we are seeing, the biological diversity, was also responding to very powerful environmental stimuli,” Leppe said.
“This world was already in crisis before (the meteorite) and this is evidenced in the rocks of the Rio de las Chinas Valley,” he said.
Reporting by Marion Giraldo; Writing by Sarah Morland, Editing by Alistair Bell
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Scientists unearth megaraptors, feathered dinosaur fossils in Chile’s Patagonia
By Marion Giraldo
(Reuters) – Scientists in Chile’s Patagonia region are unearthing the southernmost dinosaur fossils recorded outside Antarctica, including remains of megaraptors that would have dominated the area’s food chain before their mass extinction.
Fossils of megaraptors, a carnivorous dinosaur that inhabited parts of South America during the Cretaceous period some 70 million years ago, were found in sizes up to 10 meters long, according to the Journal of South American Earth Sciences.
“We were missing a piece,” Marcelo Leppe, director of the Chilean Antarctic Institute (INACH), told Reuters. “We knew where there were large mammals, there would also be large carnivores, but we hadn’t found them yet.”
The remains, recovered from Chile’s far south Rio de las Chinas Valley in the Magallanes Basin between 2016 and 2020, also include some unusual remains of unenlagia, velociraptor-like dinosaurs which likely lived covered in feathers.
The specimens, according to University of Chile researcher Jared Amudeo, had some characteristics not present in Argentine or Brazilian counterparts.
“It could be a new species, which is very likely, or belong to another family of dinosaurs that are closely related,” he said, adding more conclusive evidence is needed.
The studies also shed more light on the conditions of the meteorite impact on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula that may have triggered the dinosaurs’ extinction some 65 million years ago.
INACH’s Leppe pointed to a sharp drop in temperatures over present-day Patagonia and waves of intense cold lasting up to several thousand years, in contrast to the extremely warm climate that prevailed for much of the Cretaceous period.
“The enormous variation we are seeing, the biological diversity, was also responding to very powerful environmental stimuli,” Leppe said.
“This world was already in crisis before (the meteorite) and this is evidenced in the rocks of the Rio de las Chinas Valley,” he said.
(Reporting by Marion Giraldo; Writing by Sarah Morland, Editing by Alistair Bell)
There’s more than one way to mummify a dinosaur, study finds
Enlarge / Full-color life reconstruction of Edmontosaurus.
There’s rarely time to write about every cool science-y story that comes our way. So this year, we’re once again running a special Twelve Days of Christmas series of posts, highlighting one science story that fell through the cracks in 2022, each day from December 25 through January 5. Today: Why dinosaur “mummies” might not be as rare as scientists believed.
Under specific conditions, dinosaur fossils can include exceptionally well-preserved skin—an occurrence long thought to be rare. But the authors of an October paper published in the journal PLoS ONE suggested that these dinosaur “mummies” might be more common than previously believed, based on their analysis of a mummified duck-billed hadrosaur with well-preserved skin that showed unusual telltale signs of scavenging in the form of bite marks.
In this case, the term “mummy” refers to fossils that with well-preserved skin and sometimes other soft tissue. As we’ve reported previously, most fossils are bone, shells, teeth, and other forms of “hard” tissue, but occasionally rare fossils are discovered that preserve soft tissues like skin, muscles, organs, or even the occasional eyeball. This can tell scientists much about aspects of the biology, ecology, and evolution of such ancient organisms that skeletons alone can’t convey.
For instance, last year, researchers created a highly detailed 3D model of a 365-million-year-old ammonite fossil from the Jurassic period by combining advanced imaging techniques, revealing internal muscles that had never been previously observed. Another team of British researchers conducted experiments that involved watching dead sea bass carcasses rot to learn more about how (and why) the soft tissues of internal organs can be selectively preserved in the fossil record.
In the case of dinosaur mummies, there is an ongoing debate over what appears to be a central contradiction. The dino mummies discovered so far show signs of two different mummification processes. One is rapid burial, in which the body is quickly covered and advanced decomposition is substantially slowed and the remains are protected from scavenging. The other common pathway is desiccation, which requires the body to remain exposed to the landscape for a period of time before burial.
The specimen in question is the partial skeleton of Edmontosaurus, a duck-billed hadrosaur, discovered in the Hell Creek Formation of southwestern North Dakota and now part of the North Dakota State Fossil Collection. Dubbed “Dakota,” this mummified dinosaur showed evidence of both rapid burial and desiccation. The remains have been studied with various tools and techniques since 2008. The authors of the PLoS ONE paper also performed CT scans of the mummy, along with an analysis of the grain size of the surrounding sediments in which the fossil was found.
There was evidence of multiple gashes and punctures in the forelimb and tail, as well as holes and scrapes on the arm, hand bones, and skin in the shape of an arc, much like the shape of crocodile teeth. There were also longer V-shaped gashes on the tail that could have been made by a larger carnivorous predator, such as a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex.
Enlarge / Proposed soft tissue preservational pathway based on the studied specimen.
Becky Barnes/PloS ONE
The authors concluded that there is likely more than one pathway to dinosaur mummification, settling the debate in a way that does not “require a spectacularly unlikely convergence of events.” In short, dinosaur remains might be mummified more often than previously believed.
In the case of Dakota, the deflated appearance of the skin over the underlying bones has been seen in other dino mummies and is also well documented in modern forensics studies. The authors believe Dakota was “mummified” via a process called “desiccation and deflation,” involving incomplete scavenging, in which animal carcasses are emptied as scavengers and decomposers target internal tissues, leaving behind skin and bone. Per David Bressan at Forbes, this is what likely happened to Dakota:
After the animal died, his body was likely scavenged by a bunch of crocodiles, opening the carcass at its belly, and colonized by flies and beetles, cleaning bones and skin from the rotting flesh. Such incomplete scavenging would have exposed the dermal tissue insides, after which the outer layers became slowly desiccated. The underlying bones would prevent the empty hull from shrinking too much, preserving the finer details of the scaly skin. Finally, the now mummified remains were buried beneath mud, maybe by a sudden flash flood, and circulating fluids deposited minerals, replacing the remaining soft tissue and preserving a cast in the rock.
“Not only has Dakota taught us that durable soft tissues like skin can be preserved on partially scavenged carcasses, but these soft tissues can also provide a unique source of information about the other animals that interacted with a carcass after death,” said co-author Clint Boyd, a paleontologist at the North Dakota Geological Survey.
DOI: PLoS ONE, 2022. 10.1371/journal.pone.0275240 (About DOIs).
This Ancient Creature Is a Bizarre Hybrid of Dinosaur And Bird : ScienceAlert
We can confidently say that birds are dinosaur descendants, though paleontologists are still puzzled as to how this incredible evolutionary event occurred.
Now a complete fossilized skeleton of a bird that lived in what is today China around 120 million years ago might help clarify key steps in the transformation process, presenting with a more archaic, dinosaur-like head atop a body that has more in common with modern birds.
The transition from dinosaur to bird includes some of the most dramatic changes in shape, function, and environment, which ultimately led to the body plan that is typical of today’s birds.
Some of those shifting features can still be seen in the way modern birds develop. But the order in which these changes occurred, and the nature of the evolutionary pressures that gave rise to strictly avian characteristics, is still open for debate.
The fascinating, newly found fossil, named Cratonavis zhui, may provide important insights into the evolution of modern birds.
Researchers discovered the body print of Cratonavis, the bird with a dinosaur head, during excavations conducted in northern China.
Body prints of feathered dinosaurs and early birds, including Confuciusornis sanctus, have been discovered in this region, in sedimentary rocks formed about 120 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period.
Led by paleontologist Zhou Zhonghe from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the scientists began their investigation of the fossil skull with high-resolution computed tomography (CT) scanning.
Using the digital versions of the mineralized bones, the team reconstructed the shape and function of the skull as it was during the bird’s life.
The result shows that the shape of the Cratonavis skull is almost the same as that of dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus rex, and not like a bird’s.
“The primitive cranial features speak to the fact that most Cretaceous birds such as Cratonavis could not move their upper bill independently with respect to the braincase and lower jaw, a functional innovation widely distributed among living birds that contributes to their enormous ecological diversity,” says CAS paleontologist Zhiheng Li.
The unusual combination of a dinosaur’s akinetic skull with a bird’s skeleton adds to previous studies on the importance of evolutionary mosaicism in the early diversification of birds.
Among the avian branches of the dinosaur’s family tree, Cratonavis is between the long-tailed Archaeopteryx, which was more like a reptile, and the Ornithothoraces, which had already developed many of the traits of modern birds.
Also of interest is the fact the Cratonavis fossil has a surprisingly long scapula and first metatarsal (foot bone) – features which are rarely seen in the fossils of other dino-ancestors to birds, and altogether absent in modern birds.
Evolutionary trends show reduced length in the first metatarsal as birds developed.
The study authors propose that during the change from dinosaurs to birds, the first metatarsal went through a process of natural selection that made it shorter. Once it reached its optimal size, which was less than a quarter of the length of the second metatarsal, it lost its earlier functions.
The unique feature of an enlarged metatarsal in Cratonavis is more comparable to the Late Cretaceous Balaur, a member of a group of feathered carnivores known as dromaeosaurids.
The elongated scapula has been observed 2.0.CO;2″>previously in Cretaceous birds such as Yixianornis and Apsaravis.
The fact that Cratonavis had a very long scapula probably made up for the fact that it didn’t have a breastbone adapted to provide the meaty pectoral muscles a larger surface to attach to. This extinct species may have contributed to a biological experiment in flying behavior.
One of the lead authors, paleontologist Min Wang, explains “the elongate scapula could augment the mechanical advantage of muscle for humerus retraction/rotation, which compensates for the overall underdeveloped flight apparatus in this early bird, and these differences represent morphological experimentation in volant behavior early in bird diversification”.
The authors mention the abnomal morphologies of the scapula and metatarsals preserved in Cratonavis highlight the breadth of skeletal plasticity in early birds.
Cratonavis zhui‘s unique mix of anatomy is less a stepping stone between two majestic categories of animals, but a sign of how all living things represent increments of change, and the evolution of birds of all feather occurred simultaneously along a wide variety of divergent paths.
The research has been published in Nature Ecology & Evolution.
A 120 million-year-old dinosaur fossil with the bones of its final snack still inside of it reveals it enjoyed eating our ancestors
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Paleontologist Hans Larsson found a small mammal foot in the rib of a dinosaur fossil.
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The reptile was carnivorous and bird-like, according to McGill University.
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It’s one of only 21 dinosaur fossils ever found with its food inside of it.
The key to a small, four-winged dinosaur species’ survival was not being fussy about what it ate, the examination of a rare fossil revealed.
Paleontologist Hans Larsson, a professor at McGill University, was the first to notice a small mammal foot lodged in between the bones of a fossilized Microraptor, a carnivorous dino with birdish wings. The discovery shows the dino ate a long list of animals, including mammals, fish, birds, and lizards, the university announced in a December 21 press release.
“These finds are the only solid evidence we have about the food consumption of these long-extinct animals – and they are exceptionally rare,” Larsson said in the release. The revelation that the animal was an “opportunistic” eater “puts a new perspective on how ancient ecosystems may have worked,” he added.
Only 20 other fossils have been found with the fossilized bones of their meals inside, according to McGill, and this is the first time a fossil has shown that any dinosaur ate mammals, the Economic Times reported.
Microraptor fossils were first discovered in the early 2000s in Liaoning, China, located in the northeast part of the country along the Yellow Sea. Scientists have speculated that the species likely died out because it had four wings, and the two additional wings created drag when it moved.
Its ability to make a snack out of all kinds of animals may not have been enough for make up for two too many wings.
Read the original article on Business Insider
A 120 million-year-old dinosaur fossil with the bones of its final snack still inside of it reveals it enjoyed eating our ancestors
-
Paleontologist Hans Larsson found a small mammal foot in the rib of a dinosaur fossil.
-
The reptile was carnivorous and bird-like, according to McGill University.
-
It’s one of only 21 dinosaur fossils ever found with its food inside of it.
The key to a small, four-winged dinosaur species’ survival was not being fussy about what it ate, the examination of a rare fossil revealed.
Paleontologist Hans Larsson, a professor at McGill University, was the first to notice a small mammal foot lodged in between the bones of a fossilized Microraptor, a carnivorous dino with birdish wings. The discovery shows the dino ate a long list of animals, including mammals, fish, birds, and lizards, the university announced in a December 21 press release.
“These finds are the only solid evidence we have about the food consumption of these long-extinct animals – and they are exceptionally rare,” Larsson said in the release. The revelation that the animal was an “opportunistic” eater “puts a new perspective on how ancient ecosystems may have worked,” he added.
Only 20 other fossils have been found with the fossilized bones of their meals inside, according to McGill, and this is the first time a fossil has shown that any dinosaur ate mammals, the Economic Times reported.
Microraptor fossils were first discovered in the early 2000s in Liaoning, China, located in the northeast part of the country along the Yellow Sea. Scientists have speculated that the species likely died out because it had four wings, and the two additional wings created drag when it moved.
Its ability to make a snack out of all kinds of animals may not have been enough for make up for two too many wings.
Read the original article on Business Insider
Rare Dinosaur Fossil Found With Perfectly Preserved Final Meal Inside : ScienceAlert
Around 120 million years ago, four-winged dinosaurs roughly the size of crows called Microraptors stalked the ancient woodlands of what is now China.
While researchers have studied several Microraptor specimens, there’s still a lot we don’t know about these feathered bird-like creatures – including what and how they ate.
Now an incredibly rare fossil has revealed the preserved final meal of one individual: and unexpectedly, it was a mammal.
“At first, I couldn’t believe it,” says vertebrate paleontologist Hans Larsson from McGill University in Canada, who found the fossil while looking through samples at museum collections in China.
“There was a tiny rodent-like mammal foot about a centimeter long perfectly preserved inside a Microraptor skeleton.”
“These finds are the only solid evidence we have about the food consumption of these long extinct animals – and they are exceptionally rare,” Larsson adds.
The first Microraptor fossil was found in Liaoning, China, in 2000. There are three known species, which lived in the early Cretacious period, and the fossil in question belongs to Microraptor zhaoianus.
The Microraptors were among some of the first dinosaurs that were found with fully feathered wings on both its arms and legs – and alongside the famous feathered dinosaur Archaeopteryx, have reinforced theories that propose modern birds are closely related to categories of dinosaur.
While some studies have shown that Microraptors would have been capable of powered flight, it’s generally thought that they mostly used their wings to glide.
Up until now, the small dinosaurs had only been confirmed to eat birds, fish, and lizards, and they were thought to be arboreal hunters that glided down from the trees to capture prey.
The latest discovery expands on that idea, suggesting they were more likely to be opportunistic eaters that both scavenged and preyed upon a variety of vertebrates.
“We already know of Microraptor specimens preserved with parts of fish, a bird, and a lizard in their bellies. This new find adds a small mammal to their diet, suggesting these dinosaurs were opportunistic and not picky eaters,” says Larsson.
That’s a big deal, because although generalist carnivores are common and important stabilizers in today’s ecosystems – think of foxes and crows – this could very well be the first evidence of a generalist carnivores in a dinosaur ecosystem, Larsson and his team write.
It’s incredibly rare to find dinosaur fossils that preserve their last meal inside their stomach, they add. Out of all the carnivorous dinosaur fossils that have been found, we only know of 20 that contain their last meals.
The latest discovery takes that number to 21.
Understanding more about their diets isn’t just fascinating for those of us trying to imagine how the world looked 120 million years ago, it also provides important clues for the researchers working hard to understand exactly how dinosaurs left the land for the sky, and evolved into the true birds we see today.
“Knowing that Microraptor was a generalist carnivore puts a new perspective on how ancient ecosystems may have worked and a possible insight into the success of these small, feathered dinosaurs,” says Larsson.
The research has been published in The Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
“Very rare discovery” unveils one of the first records of a dinosaur eating a mammal
It’s not uncommon for scientists to uncover new fossils from the ages of dinosaurs, but every now and then, a discovery reveals much rarer information.
Scientists unearthed the fossil of the small and feathered microraptor zhaoianus back in 2000, but only recently did one researcher catch a “very rare discovery” — another animal inside of its remains. Professor Hans Larsson of Montreal’s McGill University found that the fossil actually displayed the foot of an ancient mammal right between the ribs.
But don’t worry — researcher David Hone of the Queen Mary University of London said it “would absolutely not have been a human ancestor.”
Ralph Attanasia III
Microraptors lived in forests of what is now China about 120 million years ago. They were roughly the size of a crow, with long feathers, and are thought to have glided through the trees to hunt for small animals. But that’s what makes this particular finding so interesting, researchers said.
After analyzing the digested animal’s foot, it seems as though it was a mouse-sized creature bound to the ground and not a particularly good climber, indicating that the microraptor likely would have abandoned its tree-top search for a land-based snack. Past studies of the feathered dinosaur have revealed they consumed birds, lizards and fish.
“It’s so rare to find examples of food inside dinosaurs so every example is really important as it gives direct evidence of what they were eating,” Hone said. “…This study paints a picture of a fascinating moment in time – one of the first record of a dinosaur eating a mammal — even if it isn’t quite as frightening as anything in Jurassic Park.”
Journal of Vertebrate Peleontology
The research was published in the Journal of Vertebrate Peleontology on Tuesday.
A press release from Hone’s university said that the finding makes it clear this particular kind of dinosaur had a “diverse diet and was not a specialist on any given option.” However, the university also noted that researchers are uncertain whether the small mammal in the raptor’s belly was a direct prey or an already-dead animal that had been scavenged.
Fellow researcher Alex Dececchi of South Dakota’s Mount Marty College compared the dinosaur to a house cat, a creature of about the same size.
“Microraptor would have been an easy animal to live with but a terror if it got out as it would hunt everything from the birds at your feeder to the mice in your hedge or the fish in your pond,” Dececchi said.