Warum sich Dinosaurierskelette so bizarr verkrümmen
Viele fossile Dinosaurier wurden in einer verkrümmten Körperhaltung gefunden. Lange haben Wissenschaftler dies als Zeichen von Todeskrämpfen interpretiert. Zwei Forscher aus Basel und Mainz kommen nun zum Schluss, dass diese bizarren Verbiegungen erst während der Zersetzung der Saurierleichen eintraten. Read more
More or less complete and articulated skeletons of fossil air-breathing vertebrates with a long neck and tail often exhibit a body posture in which the head and neck are recurved over the back of the animal. Additionally, the tail is typically drawn over the body, while the limbs have a rigid appearance. In palaeontological literature, this "opisthotonic posture" of such fossils still requires a causal interpretation in an etiological context. According to this hypothesis, there is a presumption of a cerebral disorder generating perimortem muscle spasms that are preserved by rapid burial or other sequestration of a skeleton in the fossil record. We re-evaluate this "opisthotonic posture hypothesis" by analysing the non-avian theropods Compsognathus longipes and Juravenator starki from the famous South Franconian plattenkalks of the Upper Jurassic Solnhofen Archipelago. Read more
MSU palaeontologists excavate dinosaur clutches in China
Montana State University palaeontologists recently excavated four clutches of dinosaur eggs in China and found at least four more clutches they may excavate in the future. The discovery is unusual for an area where it's hard to find fossils because the vegetation is so thick that it resembles Georgia more than Montana Read more
A Canadian-led team of international researchers has unearthed the 190-million-year-old nesting site of the prosauropod dinosaur Massospondylus - predating previously known nesting grounds by 100 million years - at an excavation site in South Africa. The finding was published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study led by Robert Reisz, a paleontologist and professor of biology at the University of Toronto's Mississauga campus, describes clutches of eggs, many with embryos, as well as tiny dinosaur footprints. Read more
For the first time, the presence of large bodied herbivorous dinosaurs in Antarctica has been recorded. Until now, remains of sauropoda - one of the most diverse and geographically widespread species of herbivorous dinosaurs - had been recovered from all continental landmasses, except Antarctica. Dr. Ignacio Alejandro Cerda, from CONICET in Argentina, and his team's identification of the remains of the sauropod dinosaur suggests that advanced titanosaurs (plant-eating, sauropod dinosaurs) achieved a global distribution at least by the Late Cretaceous. Their work has just been published online in Springer's journal, Naturwissenschaften - The Science of Nature. Read more
Remains of giant dinosaur discovered on Antarctica
Palaeontologists claim to have found the remains of a titanosaur, the family of giant plant-eating dinosaurs, on Antarctica. An Argentinian-led team has discovered the fossil of a tail bone belonging to the titanosaur on James Ross Island. Read more
New study reveals North America's biggest dinosaur
New research from Montana State University's Museum of the Rockies and the State Museum of Pennsylvania has unveiled enormous bones from North America's biggest dinosaur. In a paper published Dec. 6 in Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, MSU researcher Denver W. Fowler and coauthor Robert M. Sullivan from Harrisburg, Pa., describe two gigantic vertebrae and a femur that the team collected in New Mexico from 2003 to 2006. Read more
'Skin Bones' Helped Large Dinosaurs Survive for a Time, Study Finds
Bones contained entirely within the skin of some of the largest dinosaurs on Earth might have stored vital minerals to help the massive creatures survive and bear their young in tough times, according to new research by a team including a University of Guelph scientist. Guelph biomedical scientist Matthew Vickaryous co-authored a paper published today in Nature Communications about two sauropod dinosaurs - an adult and a juvenile - from Madagascar. The study suggests that these long-necked plant-eaters used hollow "skin bones" called osteoderms to store minerals needed to maintain their huge skeletons and to lay large egg clutches. Sediments around the fossils show that the dinosaurs' environment was highly seasonal and semi-arid, with periodic droughts causing massive die-offs. Read more
A collection of teeth from dinosaurs in the western United States has produced the first solid evidence that these ancient animals undertook seasonal migrations. It is often hard to determine what dinosaurs looked like from fossils - and trying to infer behaviour adds a whole different level of difficulty. Nevertheless, it has often been assumed that dinosaurs did migrate. Read more
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine with help from an amateur fossil hunter in College Park, Md., have described the fossil of an armoured dinosaur hatchling. It is the youngest nodosaur ever discovered, and a founder of a new genus and species that lived approximately 110 million years ago during the Early Cretaceous Era. Nodosaurs have been found in diverse locations worldwide, but they've rarely been found in the United States. The findings are published in the September 9 issue of the Journal of Palaeontology. Read more