Frozen in time: Unique fossil shows snake coiled among nest of dinosaur eggs and titanosaur hatchling.
Courtesy PLoS Biology
Diagram of fossil
Courtesy PLoS BiologyCheck out this amazing fossil showing the remains of a snake coiled around a nest of dinosaur eggs, including a nearby titanosaur hatchling. The fossil was found 26 years ago in northwestern India, and was originally thought to contain remains of eggs and baby dinosaur bones. But recent re-evalutions revealed some of the bones were actually those of a new species of snake named Sanajeh indicus. The incredible 67 million-year-old fossil is the first of its kind, and suggests that snakes preyed on dinosaurs, just as they prey on birds today. A newly hatched titanosaur would have been easy pickings for the 11.5 foot S. indicus, but an adult titanosaur - which grew to more than 100 feet in length - would have been another story. Scientists think the unique Cretaceous fossil resulted from an ancient landslide that buried the snake just when it was about to go after its next meal. Here's a photo of the incredible fossil and along with a diagram of what it contains. You can read the whole story at PLoS Biology where the research has been published.

Tags : dinosaurs, fossils, paleontology, predator, predator/prey, prey, snake

read more... | add a comment | share

Measuring the SMM camptosaurus: SMM paleo lab volunteers Becky Huset (left) and Neva Key consult over their ornithischian limb bone measurements for the Open Dinosaur Project.
Courtesy Mark RyanThe Open Dinosaur Project (ODP) allows anyone with an interest in paleontology, and access to skeletal information, scientific publications, or museum skeletons themselves the opportunity to be part of the compilation of an actual scientific paper. Paleontologists Andy Farke, Matt Wedel, and Mike Taylor make up the core ODP team, but only the core. The rest of the team is made up of individuals around the world. The hope is to put together a comprehensive database of information about the dimensions of limb bones (legs, arms, hands, and feet) of ornithischian (bird-hipped) dinosaurs in museums around the world with a goal of “investigating the evolution of locomotion and limb proportions in this group.”

“The Open Dinosaur Project fits very comfortably into that loose coalition of ideas: we’re trying to democratize science, open up data, blog the process, and make sure that the final publications are freely available to the world,” Mike Taylor said during a recent interview with the Brazilian science publication Ciência Hoje On-line.

Putting tape to toe: SMM volunteer Becky Huset measures the metatarsals and phalanx of the musuem's camptosaurus for the Open Dinosaur Project.
Courtesy Mark RyanTwo volunteers here at the Science Museum of Minnesota got themselves involved with this unique study. Becky Huset and Neva Key both work in the SMM paleo lab, usually hunched over fossils extracting them from rocks or preparing them for display. But recently, the two have spent time out on gallery floor measuring the limbs of some of the museum’s mounted ornithischian dinosaurs.

“We did the Camptosaurus and some cast bones from Stegosaurus from the collections,” Becky said. She added that measurements of the SMM Triceratops were already listed.

Why only ornithischian dinosaurs? Part of the reason was to keep the study somewhat manageable. But ornithischian dinosaurs also have an interesting evolution of locomotion that to date hasn’t been studied in depth. The dinosaur order radiated from a two-legged (biped) form into at least three different four-legged (quadruped) forms including armored dinosaurs (e.g. stegosaurs and ankylosaurs), ceratopsians (e.g. triceratops and chasmosaurus), and various ornithopod types, (e.g. camptosaurs, hadrosaurs, and iguanodontids).

How to measure a scapcoracoid: One of several measuring aids available to project volunteers from the Open Dinosaur Project website.
Courtesy Open Dinosaur ProjectIn order to aid team members in gathering the proper information, instructions, templates, and other documents are available on the Open Dinosaur Project website. Diagrams explaining ornithischian limb osteology – including each bone’s proper name - are also on the site, as are illustrations showing exactly how to properly measure the dimensions of different bones. For those involved who don’t have access to museum specimens or material in other collections, the team leaders provide lists where prior publications with skeletal information can be accessed and mined for the study.

By last week, the Open Dinosaur Project had acquired nearly 1600 entries, but the results of all this work remain to be seen. The compiled data will be analyzed over the next couple months, and Farke, Wedel, and Taylor plan to begin writing the paper this spring. When completed the study will be submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. If all goes as planned, after publication, the lead researchers will make all the data available online for future studies.

Now that their data has been entered on the ODP site, SMM volunteers Huset and Key will have their names included as contributors, and eligible to be included in the resulting paper.

"We wanted to get the general public excited about and involved in doing “real” science, working in cooperation with paleontologists. There is a great interest out there in paleontology, particularly dinosaurs. It’s amazing how many non-paleontologists read the technical literature! I thought, “Why not harness this enthusiasm?” There have been many people waiting for this sort of opportunity (even if they didn’t know it), and I think the response speaks for itself." – Andy Farke in Ciência Hoje On-line

Becky Huset enjoyed being involved with the project. “[It] sounded like a good idea,” she said. “I like having knowledge that is freely available to everyone, and it was a good way to contribute to a paper. Do some "real" work."

LINKS

Open Dinosaur Project website
Wedel’s & Taylor’s dino-related blog
More about Ornithischian dinosaurs
Osteology (the scientific study of bones)

Tags : dinosaurs, fossils, ornithischians, osteology, paleontology, scientific method, vertebrate paleontology

read more... | add a comment | share

Arthur Lakes
Courtesy Arthur Lake Library, Colorado School of MinesArthur Lakes, pioneer dinosaur hunter, and chronicler of early American paleontology, was born this day in 1844 in Martock Summerset, England. Educated at Queens College in Oxford, Lakes eventually immigrated to the United States (via Canada) where he worked as a geologist, teacher, artist, and itinerant Episcopalian minister in the area around Golden, Colorado.
Sketch by Arthur Lakes: From a Scientific American article detailing the discovery of dinosaur remains near Morrison, Colorado.
Courtesy Mark Ryan collectionOn March 27, 1877, while out measuring rock units in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains just west of Denver, Lakes and a companion, Captain Henry Beckwith, discovered large exposures of dinosaur remains. Hoping to stir up some interest, money, and perhaps some employment, Lakes sent some of the fossil bones eastward to both Othniel Marsh, and Edward Cope, unintentionally firing up the feud between the two pioneer paleontologists that would soon escalate into the famous Bone Wars of the latter 19th century. Marsh, at Yale’s Peabody Museum, eventually hired Lakes as a field worker, and used the fossils he found to describe a number of new dinosaurs species taken from several productive quarries around the Morrison, Colorado area. These new discoveries all came from the Late Jurassic-aged rocks (named the Morrison formation after the nearby town) and included the first discoveries of the now well known Stegosaurus, Diplodocus and Apatosaurus (Brontosaurus).

When the Colorado quarries were exhausted, Marsh sent Lakes north to Como Bluff in Wyoming Territory. Dinosaur bones had been found there not long after the Colorado discoveries. Arthur Lakes spent the 1879-80 season digging out tons of bones from of the Jurassic-aged sediments around Como Bluff, along with William Reed, a railroad worker who had brought the area’s rich fossil cache to Marsh’s attention. It must have been a strange pairing since the Oxford-trained Lakes was the polar opposite of the self-taught frontiersman Reed.

Como was one of the prime battlegrounds in the Fossil Feud between Marsh and Cope. The strata there was far richer than that at Morrison, and produced fossils that eventually filled the display halls at many of the world’s great natural history museums, including the Smithsonian in Washington, D. C., the Peabody Museum at Yale, and the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Original quarry site and dinosaur bone near Morrison: Arthur Lakes first discovered dinosaur bones here in 1877.
Courtesy Mark RyanLakes kept journals and wrote many letters of his activities at both Morrison and Como Bluff describing his explorations and the natural history of both areas (the journals were published in a book in 1997 by the Smithsonian Institute). These, along with his initial discoveries around Morrison, would probably have been enough to keep his name in the annals of paleontology, but his most important contributions to the science were the many sketches and watercolors he made at both locations. These depictions not only preserve a wonderful pictorial record of seminal events in the history of early American paleontology, but have also aided modern researchers in locating historical quarry sites at both locations. Many of Lakes’ original paintings are reposited at the Peabody Museum at Yale in New Haven, Connecticut.

Lakes’ original dinosaur quarry (#1) is preserved today as a historic landmark on the west side of Dinosaur Ridge along Alameda Parkway, overlooking the town of Morrison and the Red Rocks Amphitheater. Some bones, still intact in blocks of hard sandstone, can be seen there, as well as lateral views of some later discovered dinosaur footprints.

Quarry 10 at Morrison, Colorado: Lakes' historic dinosaur quarry was recently re-discovered on the slopes above town by researchers from the Morrison Natural History Museum.
Courtesy Mark RyanThe location of Quarry 10, where the remains of several sauropod species were discovered, was long lost until recently. The quarry was re-discovered and re-opened in 2002 by researchers from the nearby Morrison Natural History Museum. Artifacts of Arthur Lakes’ original diggings, such as nails and campfire charcoal have been recovered from the site. The nails would have come from support beams built to hold up the massive sandstone ledge that capped the softer clay layer from where many of the fossil bones were extracted. Lakes’ journal reported a couple collapses at this quarry in his journal. Luckily no one was working the quarry at the time, otherwise they would no doubt have been crushed to death by several tons of sandstone.

Arthur Lakes artifacts: Bits of charcoal, a support beam nail, and a belt buckle from Arthur Lakes' time recovered from Quarry 10 in Morrison, Colorado.
Courtesy Mark RyanRe-examination of Lakes' quarries has revealed some new secrets, such as the first footprints from a baby Stegosaurus. Yale has also loaned some of Lakes' original finds back to the museum in Morrison, including a toe bone from a baby Apatosaurus, and the articulated leg bones from the Apatosaurus ajax discovered at Quarry 10 in 1877.

Lakes eventually left the fossil trade, and turned his attention to the geology of Colorado, working for the US Geological Survey, and teaching courses in earth science and mining at what is today the Colorado School of Mines. The library at the school is named in his honor. Lakes continued to write, producing books and several articles about mining in Colorado. He and his sons also consulted for mining companies after he retired from teaching, and later moved to British Columbia to live out his days near his family. He died there in 1917.

If you'd like to learn more about Lakes and his life, there's a new book titled The Legacy of Arthur Lakes by Beth Simmons and Katherine Honda, recently published by The Friends of Dinosaur Ridge.

LINKS
Smithsonian article
Friends of Dinosaur Ridge

Tags : Arthur Lakes, dinosaurs, Edward Drinker Cope, fossils, history of paleontology, Othniel C. Marsh, paleontology, vertebrate paleontology

read more... | add a comment | share

Of course, some dinosaurs may not be missing--just hiding.: Many species adopt camouflage to blend in to their environments.
Courtesy Elston
Looooooong time passing....

Seems like some of them were never here to begin with. Over the years, scientists have named about 700 different species of dinosaurs. But a recent study indicates that perhaps as many as a third of these were phantoms—specimens that were given distinct names despite actually belonging to another, well-known species.

For example, Torosaurus is now thought to be just a fully mature version of Triceratops. At the other end of the age scale, Nanotyrannus is considered by some to be just a juvenile form of the famous Tyrannosaurus rex.

Why the changes? Well, identifying species is hard, even under the best of circumstances. With fossils, it’s especially tricky. You often only have one specimen to study, not dozens or hundreds as with living creatures. You can only see the fossil’s bones, not the full creature. And, most important, you only have the dead body—you can’t watch the living creature to see how it changes as it grows. (Dinosaur bones, it seems, are extremely malleable and prone to change shape as the creature matures.)

But don’t be too hard on the poor paleontologists. Other scientists have this same problem. Last year, it was reported that over 30% of all living marine creatures had been misidentified, and for the same reasons. An individual (or small group) was slightly larger than normal, or slightly smaller, or a slightly different color, or came from a different location—enough to lead the scientist to classify it as a new species, when in fact it was already a member of an established species. If taxonomists can make that many mistakes with living creatures, we shouldn’t be surprised that the dinosaur family tree will need a little pruning.

Tags : dinosaurs, fossils, paleontology, taxonomy

read more... | add a comment | share

Archaeopteryx: Its claim of having the first feathers may be over.
Courtesy Mark RyanRecently discovered fossils out of China add strong evidence to the theory that birds descended from dinosaurs. The fossil remains of a new feathered dinosaur, named Anchiornis huxleyi, were discovered in rock strata thought to be at least 10 million years older than that at Solnhofen, Germany. This is exciting news. Since the 19th century the quarries at Solnhofen have produced several skeletons of the feathered Archaeopteryx which has long been considered the first bird. But now it appears that feathers arose several millions of years before Archaeopteryx showed up in the fossil record. Professor Xu Xing of Chinese Academy of Science in Beijing reported his findings in the science journal Nature, and at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology's annual convention being held this week at the University of Bristol in England.

More about Archaeopteryx
More about the bird-dinosaur connection

Tags : dinosaurs, evolution, birds, ancient birds, archaeopteryx, China, fossils, paleontology

read more... | add a comment | share

Hesperonychus elizabethae claw
Courtesy University of CalgaryPaleontologists at the University of Calgary in Canada have described the smallest carnivorous dinosaur found yet in North America. Hesperonychus elizabethae was a small therapod about half the size of a house cat that more-than-likely feasted on insects, small mammals, and maybe even other small dinosaurs.

Remains of Heperonychus were discovered in 1982 in several places including Dinosaur Provincial Park in Alberta, and stored away as insignificant lizard remains among the collections at the University of Calgary for 25 years.

Nick Longrich, a paleontology research associate in the University of Calgary’s Department of Biological Sciences re-discovered the fossils a couple years ago and along with paleontologist Philip Currie determined the remains were those of a dinosaur rather than a lizard. The bones were closely compared against the recently discovered Asian microraptors, and help fill a glaring gap in the Cretaceous era environment in North America where large carnivores such as Tyrannosaurus rex and Albertasaurus dominated not only the landscape but the fossil record as well.

“Its discovery just emphasizes how little we actually know, and it raises the possibility that there are even smaller ones out there, waiting to be found,” said Nick Longrich. “Small carnivorous dinosaurs seemed to be completely absent from the environment, which seemed bizarre because today, the small carnivores outnumber the big ones. It turns out that they were here and they played a more important role in the ecosystem than we realized. So for the past 100 years, we've completely overlooked a major part of North America's dinosaur community."

Here’s a Nick Longrich explaining his discovery on a University of Calgary video.

Longrich’s and Currie’s study appeared yesterday in the current online issue of the journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

LINKS
Story at University of Calgary site
BBC website story

Tags : theropod, paleontology, fossils, dinosaurs, carnivore

read more... | add a comment | share