Dinosaur Embryo Study Breaks New Ground
Newly studied embryos of a long-necked, plant-eating dinosaur are the earliest known for any terrestrial vertebrate, or backboned animal, researchers say. The scientists claim the discovery yields new clues to how primitive dinosaurs evolved into the largest animals ever to walk on Earth.
It also provides a rare glimpse into the life of the Massospondylus, an early dinosaur that grew to five metres (more than five yards) and was fairly common in South Africa, they said.
The 190 million year-old embryos are from the beginning of the Jurassic Period, the middle of an epoch known as the age of dinosaurs. World Science Daily
Digging Those Dinosaurs
Six-year-old Dana Wille buzzes with excitement as she watches her father carefully brush dirt away from a dull black object embedded in the ground.
Darker than the crumbly gray rock around it, it's smooth and hard and shaped like a dog bone. Only it's bigger. A lot bigger. Indeed, as the father-daughter team slowly dust away more debris, it becomes clear that it is a femur, a leg bone, from one of the largest animals ever to roam Earth — the 80-foot-long, plant-eating apatosaurus..........USA Today
Researchers Discover Half-Billion Year-Old Fossils
Scientists interested in ancient life have a wealth of fossils and impressions frozen in rocks that they can study from as far back as 540 million years ago – when animals with shells and bones began to become plentiful. But evidence of complex life older than 540 million years is scant and difficult to study. Now, a research team from Virginia Tech in the United States and Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology in China has discovered uniquely well-preserved fossils form from 550 million year old rocks of the Ediacaran Period..........Read MoreInnovations Report, July 12, 2005
A Dinosaur Track in Alaska
A track from a three-toed dinosaur thought to be about 70 million years old was discovered in Denali National Park by a college student. The track from a theropod, a meat-eater, is the first dinosaur evidence found in the park, and caused its first paleontology closure for the area immediately around the track. It was found near the park road 35 miles from the park entrance.........Read MoreDan Joling The Associated Press July 6, 2005
An Ancient Reptile Discovered in Utah
Dinosaurs may have ruled the land 90 million years ago, but plesiosaurs ruled the sea. The giant marine reptiles were the top predators in the shallow interior seaway that at one time stretched from Utah to Nebraska, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic. This week paleontologists are excavating a plesiosaur skeleton in Utah, just north of Lake Powell. As Arizona Public Radio's Daniel Kraker reports, they believe itÂs a species never before found in the region........ KNAU/NPR Newsroom Daniel Kraker June 30, 2005 Read More
