Latest news with #dinosaur
Yahoo
19 hours ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Velociraptor's new cousin is a raptor unlike any seen before
Sometime before 2010, in the red sands of Mongolia's Gobi Desert brimming with fossils, poachers excavated and stole the exquisite skeleton of a carnivorous dinosaur. They smuggled the fossil out of the country and onto the black market. It passed through private collections in Japan and England and was eventually acquired by the French fossil company Eldonia. In 2016, one of the fossil's owners had the dinosaur's skull and four vertebrae CT-scanned at a Belgian museum, but sometime later the head and neck went missing. Their whereabouts remain unknown to scientists. Negotiations between the fossil company, paleontologists, and government officials led to the return of the dinosaur's body to Mongolia, where it could be cared for and studied, a raptor unlike any seen before. Now, this headless, extra-sharp relative of Velociraptor finally has a name: Shri rapax. The roughly six-foot-long, turkey-sized dinosaur wandered a prehistoric desert more than 71 million years ago. Like Velociraptor, which was also found in Mongolia, Shri is a dromaeosaur. This predatory dinosaur group includes Deinonychus, Utahraptor, and other feathery carnivores with large, hyperextendable claws on their second toes. "I was so surprised to find such an unexpected dromaeosaur in the same geological setting of the iconic Velociraptor," says Andrea Cau an independent paleontologist from Italy. Cau and his colleagues published a paper on July 13 in the journal Historical Biology describing the new species. The discovery is part of a growing number of raptor-like dinosaurs found in Mongolia, revealing an unexpected diversity of species and body types in this group, such as the goose-necked and slender Halszkaraptor escuilliei and Natovenator polydontus. Stronger bite, bigger claws Despite its close relationship to the Hollywood-famous Velociraptor, Shri was a very different dinosaur. A cast of its skull, which was made based off the 2016 CT-scan as the actual fossil skull is still missing, indicates Shri had a deeper and shorter snout. The finding hints that this raptor had a stronger bite than its relative. "Other differences, such as a relatively short snout, proportionally long neck, and short tail indicate that these two relatives had different ecological preferences," says Tsogtbaatar Chinzorig, a paleontologist at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and a coauthor of the study. Its arm bones are more robust and stockier, tipped with large, curved claws. It also had stout hands that imply a strong grip. Precisely how Shri used its arms and claws is unclear, though the researchers suggest it may have grappled with and grasped other dinosaurs like the horned herbivore Protoceratops. Bitten Protoceratops bones and a famous fossil of Velociraptor and Protoceratops locked in fossil combat, called the "Fighting Dinosaurs," hint that the pig-like horned dinosaurs were prey for dromaeosaurs like Shri. Michael Pittman, a paleontologist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong who was not involved in the research, says the authors' hypothesis is reasonable, and that biomechanical studies of the dinosaur's arms can potentially test the idea. He also calls the specimen, "beautiful and well-preserved." The likelihood Shri rapax and Velociraptor lived alongside each other points to a phenomenon called "niche partitioning." Closely related species can sometimes share the same landscape when they have different dietary preferences and behaviors, like how the island of Madagascar hosts many different lemur species that live in different habitats and eat different foods. Evolving different specializations allow related animals to divide habitats in different ways, boosting biodiversity. In the case of the dinosaurs, the anatomical differences between Shri and Velociraptor indicate that the carnivores were likely also part of such an ecological interplay. Returning Shri rapax home Because Shri's skeleton was poached and sold with no geological information, paleontologists are unsure exactly from where the dinosaur was excavated, beyond its clear origin from Mongolia's Djadokhta Formation. The fact that scientists have been able to study, describe, and begin to understand Shri rapax is a victory for paleontology and an effort to push back against black market fossil dealings."This case highlights yet another instance of fossil poaching," Chinzorig says, "part of a long-standing pattern of illegal smuggling of fossils from the Mongolian Gobi over the decades." It's essential that such fossils are returned, Chinzorig says, both to build scientific knowledge about the prehistoric past and to respect Mongolia's fossil heritage. If the smuggled fossil had remained in private hands, scientists would not know this new dinosaur, its relationships, or anything about the role it played in its prehistoric ecosystem. "Scientific value aside," Cau adds, "I am really happy to give some help in returning these dinosaurs home." And by introducing Shri rapax to the world, the paleontologists may, with luck, help return its missing head home. Solve the daily Crossword
Gizmodo
4 days ago
- Science
- Gizmodo
This Dinosaur Probably Chirped Like a Bird
Scientists have discovered a dinosaur that might have chirped like a bird, a finding that suggests the evolutionary origins of birdsong may be far more ancient than we previously thought. In a paper published last week in the journal PeerJ, an international team of researchers describes a 163-million-year-old fossil found in northeastern China's Hebei Province. The fossil dinosaur, which they've dubbed Pulaosaurus qinglong, measures just 28 inches (72 centimeters) and is largely complete, giving researchers an unusually detailed look at its anatomy, including its surprisingly birdlike throat. 'Even when you have a dinosaur skeleton preserved, you don't always have these isolated bones preserved with other skull elements,' Xing Xu, a paleontologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and an author of the paper, told The New York Times. 'They're very thin bones, very delicate and hard to preserve.' In vertebrates, the vocal organs protect the airway and can produce sounds, including basic noises like hisses, groans, and grunts. In most living reptiles, these structures are made of cartilage and are relatively simple. Birds, however, have delicate, bony, flexible vocal organs that can make more complicated and diverse sounds. Pulaosuarus' throat seems somewhere between the two. Its vocal structures appear to be similar to that of another dinosaur, Pinacosaurus, a kind of ankylosaur with a large, bony larynx that may have been flexible enough to produce birdlike chirps and tweets, the researchers told the Times. The researchers believe that Pulaosaurus lived during the late Jurassic period and belonged to the same group of creatures that would later give rise to 'duck-billed' dinosaurs like hadrosaurs. But Pulaosaurus and Pinacosaurus are separated by millions of years of evolution, and neither belong to the group of dinosaurs that eventually produced birds. While it's possible they developed their vocal features independently, the presence of similar structures in such distinct species indicates that dinosaurs' ancient ancestors may have been pretty chirpy. That means the origins of birdsong could lie in creatures that lived more than 230 million years ago, but it remains a mystery as to how or when modern birds' voice box, called the syrinx, evolved—or if any dinosaur shared their incredible vocal prowess.
CBC
23-07-2025
- Science
- CBC
Face to face with a perfectly preserved dinosaur that looks like it was alive yesterday
Graham Duggan An accidental discovery of a 3D fossil reveals the dinosaur's mysterious death Parts of Alberta are libraries of Earth's history, treasure troves of fossils from animals that lived millions of years ago. But sometimes, an especially rare gem is found. In Dinosaur Cold Case, a documentary from The Nature of Things, we meet the remarkable dinosaur known as Borealopelta — preserved in eye-popping 3D. Paleontologists are solving the mystery of what killed it, how it came to rest at the bottom of a prehistoric sea and how it was preserved so perfectly. The accidental discovery of an incredible dinosaur In March 2011, Shawn Funk, a shovel operator at Suncor Energy's Millennium oilsands mine north of Fort McMurray, Alta., was digging away at a large bank when he inadvertently stumbled upon Alberta's oldest dinosaur fossil and one of the most well-preserved dinosaur fossils ever found. "Right away, we knew it was going to be something good," says Don Henderson, curator of dinosaurs at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alta. "But we had no idea how good it was going to be." After getting the fossil back to the museum, Don and his team set to work solving the 110-million-year-old mystery. The life and times of Borealopelta Six years after it was found, the mysterious dino was declared a new species to science and given a proper name: Borealopelta markmitchelli. " Borealopelta" means "shield of the North," and its species name is a nod to Mark Mitchell, the Royal Tyrrell Museum technician who spent 7,000 hours fighting for every millimetre while freeing the dinosaur from the rock it was found in. The approximately five-and-a-half-metre-long specimen was so perfectly preserved that researchers were able to stare into the face of a real dinosaur that lived during a time when North America was a very different place. Borealopelta was built like a tank and covered in thick armour, especially around its neck, indicating that it needed protection from predators. At its shoulders, a massive, 51-centimetre-long spike extended out on either side. At first, it was thought these weapons could have been used for fighting other Borealopeltas, but Victoria Arbour, curator of palaeontology at the Royal BC Museum, believes they could have been used for both love and war. "When you see something like a huge spike," says Arbour, "that could simultaneously be a signal to mates that you're in good health." Borealopelta's massive shoulder spikes could have acted like a bull's horns or an elephant's tusks, which are used in defense when necessary but are also an indicator of status and strength. Many of the fossilized armour plates possessed a keratin sheath (the same material as our fingernails) with a thin film that allowed researchers to guess at Borealopelta 's colour. "It was found that at least one component of Borealopelta 's colour was this reddish brown," says Caleb Brown, a curator at the Royal Tyrrell Museum. "The pigment seemed to be concentrated on the back of the animal and not the belly, and this is consistent with this idea of countershading." Countershading allows animals to blend with their environment and hide from keen-eyed predators. Although some researchers question whether the colouration was just an anomaly of fossilization, if Borealopelta, an almost 1,300-kilogram animal, did require camouflage, it must have had some terrifying predators indeed. The terrifying dinosaur of the day, 110 million years ago, was Acrocanthosaurus, a killing machine that ruled the Cretaceous long before more well-known predators like T. rex arrived on the scene. Could an attack from an Acrocanthosaurus have been the cause of Borealopelta 's death? In a simulated test, researchers found that Acrocanthosaurus's bite would have done some serious damage to Borealopelta, and it was likely one of its main predators. But this particular specimen was found in such pristine condition, with no signs of trauma, that it must have died another way... Dino's last meal may be the key to its mysterious death After studying the location the fossil was found, the team determined that Borealopelta likely came to rest, belly up, at the bottom of a prehistoric sea. In an extremely rare find, the stomach contents of Borealopelta were preserved along with its body, providing an important clue as to how it got there. Paleobotanist David Greenwood examined Borealopelta 's miraculously fossilized last meal and discovered twigs and ferns. Incredibly, the twigs appeared to be in mid-growth, indicating that they were eaten during the wet season, when extreme storms and flash floods would have been a real problem. On the coastal plains where Borealopelta lived, a rapid rise in water level could have caught it off guard — and Borealopelta was not built for swimming. Borealopelta is preserved in incredible detail If Borealopelta drowned in a torrent that swept it away, how did it come to rest upside down on the sea floor? Henderson and Brown went back to the records to see the position in which other armoured dinosaur fossils in Alberta were found, and discovered that about 70 per cent of these dinosaurs were also found on their backs. "As [ Borealopelta ] started to rot," Brown reasons, "gases built up within the body cavity." In the water, the rest was simple physics. "That bloated body, with the soft belly and dense back, causes it to flip over," says Henderson. "Its arms and legs [would have been] sticking up in the air." With its stiff limbs acting as sails, Borealopelta would have caught the wind and literally sailed out to sea, travelling a long way into open water. Then, says Henderson, "it goes pop … and it goes down like a stone." Borealopelta would have hit the sea floor with force, burying itself in sediment that was disturbed from the impact — key to the fossil's incredible preservation. Through a chemical reaction, this sediment would have formed a natural concrete, preserving the body within its own sarcophagus. Henderson and Brown suspect this is how Borealopelta was protected from immense pressure and decay. Safe within this natural time capsule, the nodosaur waited 110 million years until one fateful day, when a miner in Alberta came across a miraculous find and Borealopelta 's mysteries were unearthed.
The Independent
21-07-2025
- Science
- The Independent
First-of-its-kind fossil settles long-standing debate
A pterosaur fossil unearthed in China has provided the first direct evidence that some species of the dinosaur-era flying reptile ate plants. The well-preserved Sinopterus atavismus fossil, found in the Jehol Biota, contained intact gut contents, settling a long-standing debate about their diet. Researchers discovered an abundance of tiny plant cell particles, known as phytoliths, and small grinding stones, called gastroliths, within the pterosaur's stomach. The presence of phytoliths and gastroliths, previously found in other herbivorous dinosaurs, indicates the pterosaur consumed full meals consisting only of plants. This finding, published in the journal Science Bulletin, concludes a scientific debate, as previous theories on pterosaur diets were mainly based on anatomical features or partial remains.
The Independent
21-07-2025
- Science
- The Independent
Chinese Pterosaur fossil sparks debate on what giant flying reptiles really ate
A first-of-its-kind pterosaur fossil unearthed in China with its gut content intact has revealed what the dinosaur-era flying reptile ate, settling a long-standing debate about whether its diet was plant or meat-based. The pterosaur is considered the first vertebrate animal to achieve powered flight, but exactly what constituted the giant reptile's diet has remained elusive. Until now, most studies have theorised their diet mainly based on anatomical features revealed by fossils, such as the structure of their beak. Some prior research has found partially digested food remains in pterosaur fossils, either within the stomach or the mouth, suggesting they ate fish and insects. While a few species of the giant beast had beak shapes indicating they might have eaten plants, fruits, nuts, and seeds, direct evidence has been lacking. Now, a new study, published in the journal Science Bulletin, provides the first direct evidence that pterosaurs also ate full meals consisting of plants. The findings are based on an analysis of a well-preserved young pterosaur of the species Sinopterus atavismus, which grew up to a wingspan of two to four meters in adulthood. The remains were unearthed at the famous Jehol Biota in northeastern China, a fossil site dated to about 145 million years ago to 100.5 million years ago. Studies suggest this region was once home to several lakes and wetlands with nearby volcanoes that periodically blanketed the area in ash. Researchers, including those from Beijing's Chinese Academy of Sciences, found the pterosaur fossil with stomach remains containing an abundance of tiny plant cell particles. These particles, called phytoliths, have previously been found in the stomachs of plant-eating dinosaurs, but never in pterosaurs before. Since phytoliths were not found anywhere else in the immediate fossil site region, researchers concluded these particles originated from the pterosaur's stomach. Scientists also found small stones called gastroliths inside the stomach remains of the giant reptile, which have been found in the guts of other herbivorous dinosaurs. These tiny stones are well known to have aided plant-eating dinosaurs in digesting plant parts by grinding them in the gut. Overall, researchers uncovered 320 phytoliths from inside the pterosaur specimen. However, scientists have yet to determine the species of plants the pterosaur likely consumed. "Phytolitholith morphologies in the stomach contents, with this high diversity, are nearly impossible to attribute to one single taxon based on the recent knowledge, which suggests that Sinopterus might have consumed a diverse range of plants,' they wrote in the study. The findings conclude a long-standing debate that at least some species of pterosaurs ate full meals consisting only of plants.
