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Post Info TOPIC: Before the Dinosaurs


L

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RE: Before the Dinosaurs
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Google maps help find predator that existed before dinosaurs

A fanged reptile that lived about 265 million years ago - before the age of the dinosaurs - has been dug up in southern Brazil by scientists.
The skull of the predator was dug up from a farm in the pampas plains of Rio Grande do Sul, after scientists spotted a bare patch on Google maps and flew over to investigate.

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Rainforest collapse drove reptile evolution

Global warming devastated tropical rainforests, 300 million years ago. Now scientists report the unexpected discovery that this event triggered an evolutionary burst amongst reptiles - and inadvertently paved the way for the rise of dinosaurs, a hundred million years later.
This event happened during the Carboniferous Period.  At that time, Europe and North America lay on the equator and were covered by steamy tropical rainforests.  But when the Earth's climate became hotter and drier, rainforests collapsed, triggering reptile evolution.

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Reptile footprints
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A new discovery of fossilised footprints reveals when reptiles first conquered dry land.

The 318-million-year-old reptile footprints were found in sea-cliffs on the Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick, Canada.  They show that reptiles were the first vertebrates (animals with a backbone) to conquer dry continental interiors.  These pioneers paved the way for the diverse ecosystems that exist on land today.
The footprints were discovered by Dr Howard Falcon-Lang of Royal Holloway, University of London.  The results of his study, undertaken with Professor Mike Benton of the University of Bristol and Canadian colleagues, are published today in the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology.

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Prestosuchus chiniquensis
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Fossil of pre-dinosaur predator found in Brazil

The creature, a Prestosuchus chiniquensis, was about seven 22 feet long, weighed one ton and lived in the Triassic Period (250 to 200 million years ago), palaeontologists from the Lutheran University of Brazil said.
A team led by palaeontologist Sergio Furtado Cabreira and biologist Lucio Roberto da Silva found the fossils in the town of Dona Francisca, some 160 miles from Porto Alegre, the capital of the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul.

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A British scientists claim that he has discovered the earliest evidence of reptiles in 315-million-year- old New Brunswick rock is being disputed by some of his North American peers.
In a BBC interview Wednesday, Howard Falcon-Lang said the discovery of fossilized footprints by scientists from Bristol University suggested reptiles evolved one million to three million years earlier than previously thought.

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Hylonomus lyelli
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Newly discovered fossilised footprints provide the earliest evidence yet for the evolution of reptiles a major event in the history of life. They are 315 million years old, making reptiles up to 3 million years older than previously thought.

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Ancient reptile tracks
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The earliest evidence for the existence of reptiles has been found in Canada.
The 315 million-year-old fossilised tracks give an insight into a key milestone in the history of life, when animals left water to live on dry land.
The footprints suggest reptiles evolved between one and three million years earlier than previously thought.

They were found by UK scientist Dr Howard Falcon-Lang in fossil-rich sea cliffs at New Brunswick.

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Before the Dinosaurs
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About 290 million years ago, lizard like creatures about the size of a pig roamed the landscape that would become the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness, US.

A hiker discovered their tracks in 2001 in the Gunnison and White River National Forests and told officials at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. The discovery created a stir among palaeontologists because no bones had ever been found and tracks were rare in the Maroon formation.

"This was the first major find" - Bryan Small, preparator of fossils at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

After five years of studies, the U.S. Forest Service is now preparing to share some of the information about the beasts of the Bells.
The research yielded evidence of four animal species in the tracks around the Maroon Bells. About 90 percent of the tracks came from Diadectes, a prehistoric creature that roamed the world 70 million years before the first dinosaurs. The tetrapod species was a herbivore, and left tracks about 5 inches long.
With a turtle head and a lizard body, Diadectes had qualities of both amphibians and reptiles. Rather than a missing link, it was an "odd mixture" remaining after amphibians and reptiles split into two distinctive groups.

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