Latest news with #Ankylosaurus
Time of India
18-05-2025
- Science
- Time of India
Dinosaur Park opens at Regional Science City
1 2 3 4 5 6 Lucknow: Regional Science City on Sunday unveiled its prehistoric park, offering visitors a thrilling, Jurassic Park-like experience. Inaugurated by state education minister Sandeep Singh, the park features over 30 life-sized dinosaur replicas , from the plant-eating, long-necked Titanosaurs to the heavily armored Ankylosaurus. To elevate the experience, a captivating light and sound show will be held daily, with two evening slots at 6:45 pm and 7:30 pm. "Understanding our past through engaging formats like this show makes learning more meaningful. I urge all school students to make maximum use of this excellent resource to cultivate scientific thinking. Our future scientists and innovators will emerge from such curious and inspired minds," said the minister. Prabodh Kumar Trivedi of the CSIR-Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, said, "This show not only entertains but also educates the masses about Earth's biological heritage. It offers a multi-sensory experience of prehistoric life and helps create awareness about biodiversity conservation and scientific inquiry." Meanwhile, National Science Centre, New Delhi director Vijay Shankar said, "Science learning must go beyond textbooks. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Glicemia alta? Pingue isso na água antes de dormir Saúde Melhor Idade Veja agora Undo Facilities like this Prehistoric Life Park offer a hands-on environment where children can visualide the distant past and build a deeper understanding of evolution and biodiversity. This show is a major step toward spreading science education." "The park features realistic animatronic dinosaurs that move and roar, creating an immersive experience for visitors. The exhibition showcases detailed information about each species, their habitats, and extinction theories. Interactive displays help visitors understand dinosaur evolution and fossil formation," said RSC coordinator Swarup Mandal.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Dinosaurs were probably not doomed for extinction and could exist today — if it weren't for the giant asteroid
There might still be dinosaurs living on Earth today — if not for the giant asteroid. It's a long-debated issue, but now researchers say the idea Dinosaurs were in decline before the Chicxulub asteroid struck 66 million years ago could be due to fossil collection practices. Not from an actual decline in population before the extinction event. Previous research had found climate change could be the cause of the initial decline. 'We analyzed the fossil record and found that the quality of the record of four groups of dinosaur (clades) gets worse during the final six million years prior to the asteroid. The probability of finding dinosaur fossils decreases, while the likelihood of dinosaurs having lived in these areas at the time is stable,' said Dr. Chris Dean, a professor at University College London, said in a statement. 'This shows we can't take the fossil record at face value.' Dean was the lead author of the research, which was published earlier this month in the journal Current Biology. To reach these conclusions, the authors examined the historical timeline of more than 8,000 fossils in the 18 million years leading up to the asteroid impact at the end of the Cretaceous period. Signs of decline in the years leading up to the impact were due to fossils being less likely to be discovered, they asserted. That's primarily because there are fewer locations with exposed and accessible rock from that time. They focused on four groups that included the armored Ankylosaurus, the popular Triceratops, the duckbilled Edmontosaurus and the king, Tyrannosaurus Rex. Using a statistical method to assess how likely a species is to inhabit a particular area, they estimated how much of North America the dinosaurs likely occupied at four different times in those 18 million years. The researchers said that the proportion of land the dinosaur groups likely occupied remained constant overall. That suggests their potential habitat area remained stable and the risk of extinction stayed low. 'Half the fossils we have from this time were found in North America. Our findings hint that, in this region at least, dinosaurs may have been doing better than previously suggested in the lead-up to the asteroid impact, potentially with a higher diversity of species than we see in the raw rock record,' Dean explained. Researchers also estimated the likelihood of the four dinosaur types being detected in each area, basing that on how much land is accessible to researchers, how much rock is exposed and how many times the researchers had attempted to find fossils from that area. The likelihood of detection declined over the years they examined. Triceratops and its group of related dinosaurs were more likely to be detected due to them favoring green plains when the habitat became the main type of environment being maintained. 'In this study, we show that this apparent decline is more likely a result of a reduced sampling window, caused by geological changes in these terminal Mesozoic fossil-bearing layers - driven by processes such as tectonics, mountain uplift, and sea-level retreat — rather than genuine fluctuations in biodiversity,' co-author Dr. Alessandro Chiarenza added. 'Dinosaurs were probably not inevitably doomed to extinction at the end of the Mesozoic. If it weren't for that asteroid, they might still share this planet with mammals, lizards, and their surviving descendants: birds,' he said.
The Independent
02-05-2025
- Science
- The Independent
Dinosaurs were probably not doomed for extinction and could exist today — if it weren't for the giant asteroid
There might still be dinosaurs living on Earth today — if not for the giant asteroid. It's a long-debated issue, but now researchers say the idea Dinosaurs were in decline before the Chicxulub asteroid struck 66 million years ago could be due to fossil collection practices. Not from an actual decline in population before the extinction event. Previous research had found climate change could be the cause of the initial decline. 'We analyzed the fossil record and found that the quality of the record of four groups of dinosaur (clades) gets worse during the final six million years prior to the asteroid. The probability of finding dinosaur fossils decreases, while the likelihood of dinosaurs having lived in these areas at the time is stable,' said Dr. Chris Dean, a professor at University College London, said in a statement. 'This shows we can't take the fossil record at face value.' Dean was the lead author of the research, which was published earlier this month in the journal Current Biology. To reach these conclusions, the authors examined the historical timeline of more than 8,000 fossils in the 18 million years leading up to the asteroid impact at the end of the Cretaceous period. Signs of decline in the years leading up to the impact were due to fossils being less likely to be discovered, they asserted. That's primarily because there are fewer locations with exposed and accessible rock from that time. They focused on four groups that included the armored Ankylosaurus, the popular Triceratops, the duckbilled Edmontosaurus and the king, Tyrannosaurus Rex. Using a statistical method to assess how likely a species is to inhabit a particular area, they estimated how much of North America the dinosaurs likely occupied at four different times in those 18 million years. The researchers said that the proportion of land the dinosaur groups likely occupied remained constant overall. That suggests their potential habitat area remained stable and the risk of extinction stayed low. 'Half the fossils we have from this time were found in North America. Our findings hint that, in this region at least, dinosaurs may have been doing better than previously suggested in the lead-up to the asteroid impact, potentially with a higher diversity of species than we see in the raw rock record,' Dean explained. Researchers also estimated the likelihood of the four dinosaur types being detected in each area, basing that on how much land is accessible to researchers, how much rock is exposed and how many times the researchers had attempted to find fossils from that area. The likelihood of detection declined over the years they examined. Triceratops and its group of related dinosaurs were more likely to be detected due to them favoring green plains when the habitat became the main type of environment being maintained. 'In this study, we show that this apparent decline is more likely a result of a reduced sampling window, caused by geological changes in these terminal Mesozoic fossil-bearing layers - driven by processes such as tectonics, mountain uplift, and sea-level retreat — rather than genuine fluctuations in biodiversity,' co-author Dr. Alessandro Chiarenza added. 'Dinosaurs were probably not inevitably doomed to extinction at the end of the Mesozoic. If it weren't for that asteroid, they might still share this planet with mammals, lizards, and their surviving descendants: birds,' he said.
CNN
11-04-2025
- Science
- CNN
Were dinosaurs headed for extinction even before massive asteroid strike? Scientists offer new clues
It's a long-standing debate in paleontology: Were dinosaurs thriving when an asteroid hit Earth one fateful spring day 66 million years ago, or were they already on their way out, and the space rock delivered a final, devastating blow? To find answers, a team of researchers studied North America's fossil record, focusing on the 18 million years before the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period. The new analysis, published Tuesday in the journal Current Biology, adds to a growing body of evidence that the dinosaurs were doing just fine before the asteroid's deadly impact. However, at face value, the fossils available for study from this time — more than 8,000 — suggest the number of dinosaur species peaked about 75 million years ago and then declined in the 9 million years leading up to the asteroid strike. 'It comes down to the fossil record and its fidelity, or its quality. And so there's been an awareness since the 1970s that the fossil record is not accurate, but it is a biased reflection in the past,' said lead study author Chris Dean, a research fellow in paleontology at University College London. 'It's only in very recent years that we've started to see the full extent of (the bias issue), when using these large databases of fossil occurrences,' he said. To understand better what was going on at the time of the dinosaurs' demise, Dean and his colleagues turned to a statistical approach called occupancy modeling to estimate the probability of a dinosaur being present at a site. Used in present-day ecology and conservation, occupancy modeling aims to account for the fact that a species may be overlooked or not detected even when present in a particular area. This study marks the first time the approach has been used to look at dinosaurs and over a large scale, Dean said. 'Applying a new technique is really hard,' Dean noted. 'I don't think it will be the last word. I'm sure there's a lot more to be said.' For the new study, the researchers looked at four main dinosaur families: Ankylosauridae (armored plant-eating dinosaurs such as the club-tailed Ankylosaurus), Ceratopsidae (large three-horned herbivores including Triceratops), Hadrosauridae (duck-billed dinosaurs), and Tyrannosauridae (carnivores such as Tyrannosaurus rex). 'We looked at these bigger groupings so we could have more data, effectively,' Dean said. 'We gridded up North America into a big spatial grid (and determined) the places where we can find fossils, (the places where we) have physically found fossils and how many times people have gone to look for fossils (in these places).' The information was fed into a computer model, and Dean and his colleagues compared the physical fossil record with that proposed by the model and found a mismatch. The model suggested that, during the 18 million-year time period in question, the proportion of land the four dinosaur clades likely occupied remained constant overall, suggesting their potential habitat area remained stable, and the risk of extinction stayed low. One of the factors that could have clouded the true diversity patterns of dinosaurs was the lack of rock exposed at the Earth's surface during that window of time — and thus available for fossil hunters today to scrutinize. 'In this study, we show that this apparent decline is more likely a result of a reduced sampling window, caused by geological changes in these terminal Mesozoic fossil-bearing layers — driven by processes such as tectonics, mountain uplift, and sea-level retreat — rather than genuine fluctuations in biodiversity,' said study coauthor Alfio Alessandro Chiarenza, a Royal Society Newton International Fellow at University College London's department of Earth sciences, in a statement. 'Dinosaurs were probably not inevitably doomed to extinction at the end of the Mesozoic,' Chiarenza said. 'If it weren't for that asteroid, they might still share this planet with mammals, lizards, and their surviving descendants: birds.' The study helped to highlight what biases may affect scientists' understanding of the true pattern of dinosaur diversity leading up to the extinction event, said Darla Zelenitsky, a paleontologist at the University of Calgary in Alberta who wasn't involved in the research. 'Because of the nature of the rock record, (paleontologists have) found it was more difficult to detect dinosaurs and thus understand their diversity patterns in that window of time just before the mass extinction,' she said. 'It certainly makes sense as we know there are biases related to the rock record that can obscure true biological patterns. The more rock that is exposed at the surface (today), the better our chance of finding dinosaurs in that rock, which in turn leads to a better understanding of their diversity patterns.' Mike Benton, a professor of vertebrate paleontology at the UK's University of Bristol, called the paper 'thorough and detailed' but said it doesn't prove there was no reduction in dinosaur diversity ahead of the extinction event. Benton's work has suggested that dinosaurs were in decline before the asteroid wiped them out. He wasn't involved in the new study. 'The current paper suggests that the 'reduction' can be explained as a statistical artefact,' Benton said via email. 'What it shows is … simply that the reduction could be real or could be explained by reduced sampling, in my opinion.'
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Were dinosaurs headed for extinction even before massive asteroid strike? Scientists offer new clues
Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. It's a long-standing debate in paleontology: Were dinosaurs thriving when an asteroid hit Earth one fateful spring day 66 million years ago, or were they already on their way out, and the space rock delivered a final, devastating blow? To find answers, a team of researchers studied North America's fossil record, focusing on the 18 million years before the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period. The new analysis, published Tuesday in the journal Current Biology, adds to a growing body of evidence that the dinosaurs were doing just fine before the asteroid's deadly impact. However, at face value, the fossils available for study from this time — more than 8,000 — suggest the number of dinosaur species peaked about 75 million years ago and then declined in the 9 million years leading up to the asteroid strike. 'It comes down to the fossil record and its fidelity, or its quality. And so there's been an awareness since the 1970s that the fossil record is not accurate, but it is a biased reflection in the past,' said lead study author Chris Dean, a research fellow in paleontology at University College London. 'It's only in very recent years that we've started to see the full extent of (the bias issue), when using these large databases of fossil occurrences,' he said. To understand better what was going on at the time of the dinosaurs' demise, Dean and his colleagues turned to a statistical approach called occupancy modeling to estimate the probability of a dinosaur being present at a site. Used in present-day ecology and conservation, occupancy modeling aims to account for the fact that a species may be overlooked or not detected even when present in a particular area. This study marks the first time the approach has been used to look at dinosaurs and over a large scale, Dean said. 'Applying a new technique is really hard,' Dean noted. 'I don't think it will be the last word. I'm sure there's a lot more to be said.' For the new study, the researchers looked at four main dinosaur families: Ankylosauridae (armored plant-eating dinosaurs such as the club-tailed Ankylosaurus), Ceratopsidae (large three-horned herbivores including Triceratops), Hadrosauridae (duck-billed dinosaurs), and Tyrannosauridae (carnivores such as Tyrannosaurus rex). 'We looked at these bigger groupings so we could have more data, effectively,' Dean said. 'We gridded up North America into a big spatial grid (and determined) the places where we can find fossils, (the places where we) have physically found fossils and how many times people have gone to look for fossils (in these places).' The information was fed into a computer model, and Dean and his colleagues compared the physical fossil record with that proposed by the model and found a mismatch. The model suggested that, during the 18 million-year time period in question, the proportion of land the four dinosaur clades likely occupied remained constant overall, suggesting their potential habitat area remained stable, and the risk of extinction stayed low. One of the factors that could have clouded the true diversity patterns of dinosaurs was the lack of rock exposed at the Earth's surface during that window of time — and thus available for fossil hunters today to scrutinize. 'In this study, we show that this apparent decline is more likely a result of a reduced sampling window, caused by geological changes in these terminal Mesozoic fossil-bearing layers — driven by processes such as tectonics, mountain uplift, and sea-level retreat — rather than genuine fluctuations in biodiversity,' said study coauthor Alfio Alessandro Chiarenza, a Royal Society Newton International Fellow at University College London's department of Earth sciences, in a statement. 'Dinosaurs were probably not inevitably doomed to extinction at the end of the Mesozoic,' Chiarenza said. 'If it weren't for that asteroid, they might still share this planet with mammals, lizards, and their surviving descendants: birds.' The study helped to highlight what biases may affect scientists' understanding of the true pattern of dinosaur diversity leading up to the extinction event, said Darla Zelenitsky, a paleontologist at the University of Calgary in Alberta who wasn't involved in the research. 'Because of the nature of the rock record, (paleontologists have) found it was more difficult to detect dinosaurs and thus understand their diversity patterns in that window of time just before the mass extinction,' she said. 'It certainly makes sense as we know there are biases related to the rock record that can obscure true biological patterns. The more rock that is exposed at the surface (today), the better our chance of finding dinosaurs in that rock, which in turn leads to a better understanding of their diversity patterns.' Mike Benton, a professor of vertebrate paleontology at the UK's University of Bristol, called the paper 'thorough and detailed' but said it doesn't prove there was no reduction in dinosaur diversity ahead of the extinction event. Benton's work has suggested that dinosaurs were in decline before the asteroid wiped them out. He wasn't involved in the new study. 'The current paper suggests that the 'reduction' can be explained as a statistical artefact,' Benton said via email. 'What it shows is … simply that the reduction could be real or could be explained by reduced sampling, in my opinion.'
