Dino Discoveries:  Spinops sternbergorum

Spinops sternbergorum weighed around 2 tons when it was alive, but it was overlooked for decades on the shelves of the Natural History Museum in London. Curators decided the fossils, discovered in 1916 by father and son fossil collectors Charles H. and Levi Sternberg, were in no condition to display. Eventually paleontologists recognized the value of the fossils and cleaned them up for study. They finally gave the horned dinosaur a name last year in a paper published in Acta Palaeontologica Polonica.

Image: Copyright Dmitry Bogdanov, courtesy of Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology

(via: Wired Science)

(Source: rhamphotheca, via rhamphotheca)

A MUSEUM STORY

My mom took me to this exhibit every Saturday when it opened in the 90’s. It was brilliant and included a dino lab with a palaeontologist on hand every day cleaning and studying fossils. The Maiasaur exhibit is one of my favourite dinosaur displays I’ve ever seen.

I came so often that the palaeontologist (who in retrospect was probably just a grad student most days) would let me into the lab to look around.

That dude is still my hero.

(Source: romkids, via romkids)

(Source: spaceplasma)

The Evolution of Tyrannosaurus rex

The terrible lizards of your childhood have changed quite a bit, despite having been dead for millions of years. Perhaps nowhere is that more evident than in ol’ Sharptooth: T. rex

Many folks without strong paleontology backgrounds (which, let’s face it, includes most people … including me) don’t appreciate how little we really know for sure about these prehistoric forms. We go to a museum, we see a fossil reconstruction of an immense dinosaur, and we assume that’s how it came out of the ground. That’s not the case.

While the Field Museum’s famous T. rex ”Sue” was 80% complete upon excavation, the first specimen ever constructed was done so with just a suitcase’s worth of bones. See the shaded regions in the upper left drawing? That’s the 108-year-old first reconstruction of T. rex done by W.D. Matthew. And it’s very wrong.

Even into the 1940’s, when Rudolph Zallinger painted The Age of Reptiles mural (top right) for Yale’s Peabody Museum, T. rex was still a clumsy, chubby, upright tail-dragger that looked more like a drunk Godzilla than king of the dinosaurs. By the 1970’s it was clear to scientists that T. rex could not have have held its body that way, and instead moved holding its head and tail nearly parallel to the ground.

But the tail-dragger myth persisted, and in 1988’s The Land Before Time (which, let’s face it, is where most of us first formed our images of dinosaurs) Sharptooth was frustratingly upright (see middle left). Combine that with the ridiculously impossible, ninja-like aerial assault on Littlefoot’s mom, and we have a real dino science stinker on our hands. Stan Winston’s Jurassic Park finally got the head-down pose right (middle right). Yet children and college students still overwhelmingly draw T. rex as upright.

Modern paleoartists (like Raul Martin, lower left) get it consistently right, but the public doesn’t. It shows you just how important it is to deliver good science to kids, because even today I can feel the upright pose of my T. rex dinobot calling me back to wrongville.

And as we continue to learn more about Tyrannosaur relatives and the feathery frills they sported, we are beginning to see many artists add them to the great hunter (lower right, by pheaston). Plumage rarely shows up in fossils, and scientists and artists have to be careful not to make errors of incompleteness like we saw 108 years ago. But considering how good Velociraptor looks with that fancy outfit on, I think we’ll see more and more feathery fury on T. rex in the future.

At least none of YOU will ever draw it incorrectly again, right? :)

For more cool dino illustration, check out Fuck Yeah Dino Art.

(Source: itsokaytobesmart.com)

If you enjoyed the last post about the changing shape of Tyrannosaurus rex and want to dig deeper (see what I did there?) into the awesome world of modern dinosaur science, there’s nobody better than Brian Switek.

I just picked up his new book, My Beloved Brontosaurus (which never existed, btw … but that’s kind of the point). Check it out, and I would suggest making his blog a regular stop.

Walking With Dinosaurs 3D

Although there’s bound to be a slew of incoming flack and criticism about this film, let’s all keep in mind that again, we do not live in a broadly scientifically literate world. Jurassic Park went out of its way to provide a Hollywood-style film, writ with loud noises, a snappy script diverse with personalities, most of which were riddled with personal issues, distracting away from the inaccuracies and thrust into the theaters for the lay-movie-goer to absorb (what they feel) is a real depiction of the dinosaurs they’ve come to know (or so they thought).

When I took my son to see Jurassic Park in IMAX 3D, it was purely for the fun of it. However, while even a quarter of the way through the film, I had secretly hoped that Speilberg used the publicity of the film wisely enough to not simply bring people into the theaters to exploit a decade-old film simply “for the fun of it.” Maybe at the end of the film, just before the credits would roll, Speilberg and his paleontologist colleagues would interrupt to leave theater-goers/dinosaur-lovers with some parting knowledge.

What an opportunity this would present him with…capturing the attention of audience members with a visual feast of CGI then leaving everyone with a brief overview on what science and technology has brought forth from the depths of history since the film’s first debut in 1993 in order for us to have a clearer understanding of how these creatures looked, felt, moved, lived and died. Sadly, this wasn’t the case and I sat blank-faced (but ultimately not incredibly surprised) at the scrolling credits in front of a blank, black canvas…a dark screen which could have dinosaur “factoids” running along the side? Just a thought. Unfortunately, no.

Walking With Dinosaurs 3D has been adapted onto the “big screen” in an attempt to transfer the information relayed from the television series. And although it gives off a “Land Before Time” feel, it isn’t. No talking Dinosaurs and no basic animation. Although the film’s first look may conjure up Disney nostalgia, once again, it’s not a Disney film. The CGI rendered has been constructed meticulously by paleontologists on the forefront of their fields. Here’s an opportunity for people to be engaged with a more accurate depiction of the flora and fauna as scientists across various fields have come to understand and through technology/graphic design, able to visually portray to the public. If the lay-movie-goer is not familiar with our current understanding of these creatures, they’re sure to be intrigued by this trailer. And when it’s all said and done, after the apps have been released and the marketing/advertising has done all it can to hype up the film, I would hope those who see it (or rent/buy it later on) have not only been entertained, but educated and their curiosities re-ignited as well.

I, for one, am relieved to see a film like this come out after Jurassic Park 3D and can only assume it was planned this way so that WWD reaches a broader demographic with some good science. I’ll be looking forward to seeing all of our fellow science/paleontology/dinosaur blogs fielding questions, providing links to further people’s interest and reserve judgement until the film is released. Let’s use this opportunity in the mean time - all the time - to educate and empower individuals without a monster-budget film or CGI-dramatics. Power to the tumblr bloggers.

Stay curious*

- sagansense

(via prehistoric-birds)

How Do You 3-D Scan a Dinosaur?

A night at the museum with the Smithsonian’s “Laser Cowboys” http://j.mp/17Vclt8

Using laser scanners and high-tech computer software, Vince Rossi and Adam Metallo are recreating a digital Dinosaur Hall before it’s dismantled

via Smithsonian Magazine.

(Source: skeptv.net)

Dinosaur Growth Spurt.

By studying fossilized embryonic femur bones at different stages of development, scientists can learn how Lufengosaurus grew up to be a giant.

Nearly 200 million years ago, some of the earliest dinosaurs on Earth laid their eggs in modern Yunnan Province in southern China, only to have one nest after another destroyed by floods. Today, the remains of those lost eggs—and the embryonic dinosaurs that they contained—are helping scientists understand how their relatives grew up to be giants…

(read more: Science NOW)

(Credit: D. Mazierski; Debivort; D. Mazierski and D. Scott From Photos by A. Le Blanc)

(Source: rhamphotheca)

deinonychus, citipati, diabloceratops and stygimoloch w/ flowers

also a tiling version:

(Source: psittacosaurus)

Feathered Dinosaurs were Diverse, Like Darwin’s Finches

by Megan Gannon

Flightless feathered dinosaurs with parrotlike beaks and long, skinny claws that scampered around North America may have been the Darwin’s finches of the Late Cretaceous era.

Fossils of at least five species of vegetarian birdlike dinosaurs known as caenagnathids have been found from West Texas to Canada with wide variation in their beak shapes and body size, giving scientists clues about how the small creatures could coexist by carving out different dietary niches.

Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection was famously inspired by the diversity of beak shapes among finches on the Galapagos Islands, which he took as a sign that the birds had somehow adapted to the specific environments where they lived. More recent research has shown that Darwin’s finches can evolve quite quickly. For instance, one species shrunk its beak size to better compete with another bird for small seeds in a mere two decades.

Millions of years ago, different species of caenagnathids may have similarly adjusted their beak size across western North America…

(read more: LiveScience)        

(illustration by  Nicholas R. Longrich/Yale - This new species, Leptorhynchos (“little jaw”) gaddisi, belongs to a broader group of bird-like dinosaurs characterized by toothless beaks and long, slender claws.)

(Source: rhamphotheca)

Chris Calvey: Molecular Biology, Evolution, and God

For more information, visit: http://freethoughtfestival.org
AHA @ UW-Madison: http://wiscatheists.blogspot.com/

Chris Calvey is the event organizer for the Freethought Festival, and a leader of the Atheists, Humanists, and Agnostics (AHA!) at the UW-Madison. He holds degrees in Materials Science Engineering and Molecular & Cellular Biology from the UIUC, where he also founded the Illini Secular Student Alliance. He is currently pursuing a PhD, with research focusing on biofuel production in yeast. Prior to moving to Madison, he worked at the J. Craig Venter Institute and was a member of the team responsible for creating the world’s first “Synthetic Bacterial Cell.”

Videography by Cal Calkins: http://www.creativeimagesbycal.com

Duration: 01:19:18

via AHA @ UW.

(Source: skeptv.net)

“This piece is a spectacular summary of the age (Carboniferous) as one dominated by enormous, bizarre-looking plants, with Sigillaria looming imposingly from behind a tangled veil of tree ferns. The dramatically leaping animal in the foreground is Hylonomus, the earliest known definitive reptile. While I realise I gush about Henderson non-stop, this truly is one of his masterpieces; I only wish I had an enormous print of it to hang on my wall.”

Mark Vincent at Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs

(Source: paleoillustration)

Out With the Old Stegosaurus

by Brian Switek

Dinosaurs have changed quite a bit since I was a kid. Tails have been lifted, spines adjusted, skulls switched around, wrists repositioned, and feathery body coverings added, just to start. But some dinosaurs have changed more than others.

The tottering, lizard-skinned Tyrannosaurus rex of my youth shuffled awkwardly after whatever was slow enough to catch, while the modern visions of the carnivore depict a fluffy tyrant with a spine held parallel to the ground and a respectable 10-15 mile per hour run. T. rex almost three decades after I first met the predator is a very different animal. But the great armor-plated dinosaur Stegosaurus hasn’t undergone the same degree of sweeping alterations. Not quite.

…

Contrary to what I learned as a kid, Stegosaurus did not have a butt brain, nor did the dinosaur rely on the sun to warm up. And despite the variety of Stegosaurus renditions out there, lovely skeletons and evidence gleaned from them have shown that the famous dinosaur had plates arranged in a single alternating row and a thagomizer bearing four spikes. Stegosaurus was still among the oddest of all dinosaurs, but the image of the hefty herbivore as a stooped, moronic pile of ectothermic armor has been extinct for years now…

(read more: http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/04/29/out-with-the-old-stegosaurus/)

images:

T - a modern interpretation of S. stenops by Nobu Tamura

M - A modern vision of Stegosaurus on display at the Utah Field House of Natural History in Vernal (photo: B. Switek)

B - the antiquated vision of Stegosaurus by Charles R. Knight

(Source: rhamphotheca)

There’s something Fishy About Microraptor

by Brian Switek

I don’t know why a raven is like a writing desk, but I do know that Microraptor was like a cat. The feathery little dinosaur was cute and glossy, but those adorable features were offset by the carnivore’s excessive pointiness. Even though the non-avian dinosaur was about the size of a raven, and even had feathers with an iridescent corvid sheen, Microraptor still bore pointed teeth, grasping hand claws, and the classic deinonychosaur switchblade talons on each foot. All of this made Microraptor a cuddly-looking little cutter, much like a cat. And the dinosaur shared something else with felines – a fondness for fish.

Since the time the dinosaur was named in 2000, paleontologists have discovered multiple specimens of Microraptor in the 120 million year old lake deposits of China. Many of these are not only articulated, but fossilized to such a fine degree that the petrified remains of their feathers remain intact. This hi-def preservation also safeguarded tatters of Microraptor meals. One Microraptor individual, described two years ago, had feasted on an early bird shortly before perishing in a case of non-avian dinosaur eats avian dinosaur. But a Microraptor known as  QM V1002 enjoyed a different last meal.

Fossilized in the position of QM V1002′s stomach, paleontologist Lida Xing and colleagues explain in a new Evolution paper, are the scraps of bony fish. A small mass of fin rays, vertebrae, and other piscine tidbits are tucked between the dinosaur’s ribs, some of which had been etched by digestive fluids when the Microraptor was still alive. The question is whether this Microraptor actually caught fish or just happened along some convenient snacks thrown up onto the lakeshore…

(read more: http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/04/22/theres-something-fishy-about-microraptor/)

(images: T - Jason Brougham, UT - Austin; B - UT - Austin)

(Source: rhamphotheca)

Birds’ “Crouching” Gait Born in Dinosaur Ancestors

Getting closer to the ground helped dinosaurs take flight, says a new study.

by Brian Handwerk

Watch a bird’s odd, bent-legged gait and you’ll see an evolutionary adaptation born millions of years ago in its dinosaur ancestors while they were still confined to the ground.

The crouched stance developed to compensate for the growth of larger forelimbs that eventually made flight possible, according to new research that digitally “fleshed out” fossils to show physical changes over the eons as bipedal dinosaurs evolved into birds. (Read about the evolution of feathers in National Geographic magazine.)

Birds and humans are the most common bipedal species in the modern world, but their legs are strikingly different. Humans are basically straight-legged, which allows their bones to support their resting body weight. But bird legs are bent into a zigzag, putting them in a crouched position that requires much more muscular effort to stand.

“It’s more efficient to bear weight passively, in a straight line down your long bones [like] a pillar,” said Vivian Allen of theRoyal Veterinary College’s Structure and Motion Lab at the University of London, and co-author of astudy published this week in the journal Nature.

(read more: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130424-dinosaurs-birds-flight-paleontology-evolution-science/)

(photos: T - Luis Rey; M - Allosaurus reconstruction, by Vivian Allen; B - Kozarluha)

(Source: rhamphotheca)