Transition species found from birds with teeth to beaked birds.

[shunyadragon]

A large number of species of bird were found in Xinjiang Province China, indicate a transition species where babies had teeth and lost them as they matured.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/22/health/dinosaurs-that-lose-teeth-china-trnd/

(CNN)A group of 13 dinosaurs that died in a mud pit in China has yielded an unprecedented discovery.

Why do birds have beaks and not teeth?

The 154 million-year-old limusaurus had tiny, sharp teeth as a hatchling that it gradually lost as it grew up, according to new research published in the journal Current Biology on Thursday.
The finding is a first for the fossil record and may shed light on why birds have beaks and not teeth.
The group ranged from babies to adults and showed a pattern of tooth loss over time. The fossilized skeletons were found in mysterious death pits in Xinjiang in the far west of China.
"At first we thought they were different dinosaurs -- one with teeth and one without and we started to study them separately," said Wang Shuo, a co-author of the study and an evolutionary biologist at Capital Normal University in Beijing.
"But they were largely identical and we found solid evidence that teeth were lost. There were empty tooth sockets in their jaw bones," he added.

© Copyright Original Source

[hansgeorg]

Are Chinese palaeontological discoveries credible?

Dia-Mat is a state religion over there!

[Roy]

Are Chinese palaeontological discoveries credible?

They're more credible than you.

[shunyadragon]

Are Chinese palaeontological discoveries credible?

If you asked me about this before 2000 I would say that yes academically Chinese Universities were poor at best in paleontology. Since 2000 the Chinese have invested a lot of money in their universities

The paleontological team involved in the excavation of this site is an international team including one American. The work and discoveries are indeed credible. I m a geologist and lived in China 9 years (1998-2006), and visited a number of significant fossil sites such as the extensive dinosaur era sites of Liaoning Province and other areas, and in 2003 through 2006 I met several German and American paleontologists involved with the Chinese universities.

The main problem in China is theft, smuggling to international underground markets. There have been a few cleverly forged sensational fossils in western museums that have been uncovered on closer examination.

The significance of this discovery is the large number of fossils of different age birds and some complete near skeletons.

Dia-Mat is a state religion over there!

The old Karl Marx philosophy of Dialectical materialism was discarded in the 1980 through 1990 period of ejection of the Revolution philosophy. They now embrace the western modern academic view of science, which you also reject.

The main problem I have with science in China that is slow to change concerns their interpretation of Chinese archealogical finds and history. This problem is a severe ethnocentric cultural problem and predates The Revolutionary dynasty of Mao Ze Dong.

[hansgeorg]

The old Karl Marx philosophy of Dialectical materialism was discarded in the 1980 through 1990 period of ejection of the Revolution philosophy. They now embrace the western modern academic view of science, which you also reject.

And which by now is not very different at its basics from DiaMat.

Thanks for info on the team, though.

[shunyadragon]

And which by now is not very different at its basics from DiaMat.

Thanks for info on the team, though.

It is very different from DiaMet. No one in the whole world of academic science today endorses DiaMat.

[rogue06]

Are Chinese palaeontological discoveries credible?

Dia-Mat is a state religion over there!

Historically Chinese science journals have proven to be somewhat unreliable but this was published in Current Biology, which has a good reputation and was conducted by an international team including Americans from George Washington University (a private research university located in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C) and a French scientist from Claude Bernard University Lyon 1.

After looking over the entire text of the paper (available here), the research seems solid.

[shunyadragon]

Historically Chinese science journals have proven to be somewhat unreliable but this was published in Current Biology, which has a good reputation and was conducted by an international team including Americans from George Washington University (a private research university located in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C) and a French scientist from Claude Bernard University Lyon 1.

After looking over the entire text of the paper (available here), the research seems solid.

I appreciate your addition of details, but unfortunately hansgeorg could care less, and rejects modern science of any sort.

[Bret]

And which by now is not very different at its basics from DiaMat.

Oh my.