A large nesting area consisting of hundreds of dinosaur egg clusters in several layers covering over two square km (¾ sq. mi.) have been found in an ancient river bed in the Cauvery river basin located in the Ariyalur district of the state of Tamil Nadu in southern India and dated at approximately 65 myo – at the end of the Cretaceous.

The eggs themselves were spherical in shape and measured between 13 and 23cm (5 to 9”) in diameter while the clutches themselves were sandy nests around 1¼ meters (a little over 4’) across containing 7 to 8 eggs each.

All the eggs were unhatched and apparently infertile. Researchers noticed that the eggs had been covered in layers of volcanic ash (probably from the incredible Deccan Traps, which were active at this time) and suggest that the nearby continuous volcanic activity may be at least in part responsible for the eggs failure to hatch.

Most reports state that the eggs discovered had been laid by an unknown sauropod (the quadrupedal herbivores with long necks and tails), while some mention that the eggs from carnivorous Carnosaurs (relatives of allosaurs). More information is needed in that IIRC sauropods and carnosaurs eggs are differently shaped as their nests might be different as well.

Adding to the confusion is that even though the eggs and nests are described as being 65 myo several news stories mistakenly identify them as being a ‘Jurassic treasure trove’ of eggs. The problem with that is the Jurassic period took place between approximately 200 to 145 mya – a minimum of 80 million years off from the 65 myo (end of the Cretaceous) date assigned to the find.

Apparently adding to the confusion is the lead researcher of the project, Dr. MU Ramkumar, head of Periyar University’s Geology Department, who is reported to describing it as the afore-mentioned “Jurassic treasure trove.”

Along with the eggs the team has uncovered an unknown number of fossilized dinosaur footprints.



Further Reading:

Dinosaur eggs are found in India

Hundreds of dinosaur nests found in India

Jurassic egg hoard in India 'could hold clues to dinosaur extinction mystery'

Over 100 Dinosaur Eggs Found in India

Cluster of dinosaur eggs found in southern India

Only a couple of weeks after the announcement of the discovery of Raptorex the discovery of the mostly intact, well-preserved remains of yet another unusual cousin of the ferocious Tyrannosaurus rex was announced that should provide a valuable insight into the poorly understood tyrannosaurid family tree.

The new find was excavated from rocks located in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia dated at 65 to 70 myo and has been named Alioramus altai (after Mongolia's Altai Mountains). This tyrannosaur was smaller, slimmer and more graceful than its relatives and sported several unusual features including a long-snouted and gracile skull with eight horns that were probably about five inches long.

The horned skull (something never seen on an tyrannosaur before) is of course what grabs your attention. Unlike T. rex which is known for its massive, powerful jaws filled with serrated railroad spike-like teeth, Alioramus possessed a proportionately smaller head that was long-snouted and considerably narrower, with much weaker jaws and muscle attachments and slender teeth.

All in all Alioramus’ elongated head and weaker bite meant that it wasn’t crunching its way through bones like its larger kin did resulting in it probably feeding on smaller prey. And what it lacked in strength and power it made up for in speed and agility. The researchers that discovered it refer to it as being more like a ballerina in comparison to its relatives. It didn’t rely on brute strength when it hunted but needed different strategies possibily including reliance upon stealth.

Alioramus had air sacs running through the vertebrae in its neck and spine which allowed it to breathe in an exceptionally efficient manner. This would have also resulted in making it light for its size.

The specimen was 9 years old when it died, an older juvenile that had achieved about 85% of its adult size. Alioramus was 8 meters (just over 26’) long and weighed roughly 370kg (814lbs.). In contrast an adult T. rex was over 13 meters (43’) long and weighed up to 6.8 metric tons (7.5 short tons) in weight.

Up to now, Alioramus was only known from some fragments and it’s been debated whether it was a proper tyrannosaur, a more primitive cousin, or perhaps a juvenile Tarbosaurus (the Chinese version of T. rex). But CAT (computed axial tomography) Scans of the brain case revealed the large air sacks, huge olfactory bulbs, and the small inner ear expected for a tyrannosaur.



Further Reading:

A long-snouted, multihorned tyrannosaurid from the Late Cretaceous of Mongolia Abstract

Newfound tiny Tyrannosaur had horns

Relative of T rex discovered

Ballerina tyrannosaur unearthed in Mongolia

Originally posted by rogue06

A large nesting area consisting of hundreds of dinosaur egg clusters in several layers covering over two square km (¾ sq. mi.) have been found in an ancient river bed in the Cauvery river basin located in the Ariyalur district of the state of Tamil Nadu in southern India and dated at approximately 65 myo – at the end of the Cretaceous.

The eggs themselves were spherical in shape and measured between 13 and 23cm (5 to 9”) in diameter while the clutches themselves were sandy nests around 1¼ meters (a little over 4’) across containing 7 to 8 eggs each.

All the eggs were unhatched and apparently infertile. Researchers noticed that the eggs had been covered in layers of volcanic ash (probably from the incredible Deccan Traps, which were active at this time) and suggest that the nearby continuous volcanic activity may be at least in part responsible for the eggs failure to hatch.

Most reports state that the eggs discovered had been laid by an unknown sauropod (the quadrupedal herbivores with long necks and tails), while some mention that the eggs from carnivorous Carnosaurs (relatives of allosaurs). More information is needed in that IIRC sauropods and carnosaurs eggs are differently shaped as their nests might be different as well.

Adding to the confusion is that even though the eggs and nests are described as being 65 myo several news stories mistakenly identify them as being a ‘Jurassic treasure trove’ of eggs. The problem with that is the Jurassic period took place between approximately 200 to 145 mya – a minimum of 80 million years off from the 65 myo (end of the Cretaceous) date assigned to the find.

Apparently adding to the confusion is the lead researcher of the project, Dr. MU Ramkumar, head of Periyar University’s Geology Department, who is reported to describing it as the afore-mentioned “Jurassic treasure trove.”

Along with the eggs the team has uncovered an unknown number of fossilized dinosaur footprints.



Further Reading:

Dinosaur eggs are found in India

Hundreds of dinosaur nests found in India

Jurassic egg hoard in India 'could hold clues to dinosaur extinction mystery'

Over 100 Dinosaur Eggs Found in India

Cluster of dinosaur eggs found in southern India

UPDATE:

It appears that the nest of 65 myo dinosaur eggs found in India have been heavily looted by local villagers, tourists and students who are walking off with individual eggs and entire clusters since the announcement of the discovery.


Eggs being stolen at TN dinosaur fossil site ---Video

The same video can be seen HERE without the commercial

I notice it is still being billed as India’s “Jurassic Jewels”

A new dinosaur trackway has been discovered in chalky sediment in the Jura plateau at Plagne, near Lyon, in southeastern France, not far from the Swiss border are being billed as the largest dinosaur footprints ever discovered.

The well-preserved fossilized tracks are roughly circular-shaped depressions, reportedly measuring between 1.2 to nearly 2 meters (3’11” to 6’6”) across and are surrounded or ringed by a fold in the muddy limestone sediment. Their massive size indicates that the dinosaurs that created them were likely approximately 40 tonnes (44 tons) in weight and in excess of 25 meters (82’) long.

The prints were found in April of this year by a pair of nature lovers and amateur fossil hunters, and authenticated by researchers from the Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 and the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) based on morphological criteria and the sediment containing them as having been made by some sauropods about 150 mya (Late Jurassic).

The researchers describe the tracks as extending over dozens of, and possibly several hundred, meters (the actual trackway left by the sauropods that was discovered runs for 150 meters or 92’) and propose that the Plagne site might have been along a route used by sauropod dinosaurs. So far, 20 prints distributed on a 10-hectare (25-acre) site have been uncovered.

At the time the tracks were laid down the region was mostly covered by a shallow sea. That sauropods were walking about here when the land was underwater indicates that the sea levels were low then.



Further Reading:

Largest Dinosaur Footprints Ever Found Discovered Near Lyon, France

Dinosaur prints found in France

Dino footprints enter record books

"Unique" dinosaur footprints discovered in France

Big dino prints found in Jurassic park in France

More than 250 fossilized footprints in the Early Jurassic* Moyeni tracksite located in the Elliot Formation of the Stormberg Group in the Karoo Basin in Lesotho, southern Africa, have been re-examined by researchers using a mix of traditional mapping techniques and a three-dimensional surface scanner, which recorded millimeter-scale detail.

The new analysis of the fossil trackway revealed that two types of dinosaurs, consisting of several basal ornithischian (bird-hipped) dinosaurs and a single theropod, were walking across an ancient point bar that presented the animals with a slippery sloping terrain to traverse.

What makes this interesting is the different approaches these two types of dinosaurs took as they adjusted to variations in the terrain as they moved from a wet riverbed to a sloping bank and finally the flat upper surface of the point bar and thus bestowing us a peek at the dynamic locomotive capacities of these two dinosaur lines at an early point in their evolution.

The basal ornithischian track-makers changed the way they walked as surface conditions changed, altering between quadrupedal and bipedal stances, wide and narrow gaits and both plantigrade and digitigrade foot posture.

In the riverbed they appeared to have crouched down low, adopting a sprawling quadrupedal stance, and dragging their feet, crept forward flat-footed. Once on the slope, the ornithischians narrowed their four-legged stance, but no longer dragging their feet. When they finally reached the flat, stable ground on top, they swapped over to walking on only two legs.

The bipedal theropod track-maker, which left around 25 fossilized footprints, was likely a Grallator that was approximately 5 to 6 meters (16½’ to 19 ½’) long, neither modified foot posture or adopted a wider, more stable gait but rather adjusted to the changing terrain by griping the muddy ground with its pedal claws.

As the researchers noted, the trackway provides a physical record with how two early dinosaurs reacted and adjusted to the same set of complex ground conditions. And the different walking styles also offer insight into the later evolution of these two dinosaur lines.

Ornithischians, which switched from mainly bipedal to exclusively quadrupedal locomotion three separate times in their evolutionary history, are shown to have been capable of adopting both postures early in their evolutionary history.

OTOH, while theropods remained bipedal, the earth-gripping claws are consistent with the hypothesized function of pedal claws in bird ancestors.



Further Reading:

Dynamic Locomotor Capabilities Revealed by Early Dinosaur Trackmakers from Southern Africa Abstract & Paper

Trackway analysis shows how dinosaurs coped with slippery slopes



* The actual age of the sediment the tracks are in are approximately 199 myo – right around the Triassic-Jurassic boundary

Two more reports of fossilized footprint discoveries and both come from South Korea.

The first comes from a beach near Daejeong, on the southern end of South Korea’s largest island, Jeju (Cheju), and consists of a human footprint, though the accompanying photo seems to indicate at least two. The fact that the Cultural Properties Administration (CPA) describes it as measuring 21 to 25cm (8¼ to almost 10”) long also suggests more than one print.

In any case the news account proclaims that the print(s) is about 50,000 years old and the first fossilized human track to be found in Asia. The print(s) was found together with approximately 12,000 fossilized animal prints and plants. The government has taken steps to declare the site a natural monument.



The other report comes from Namhae in South Gyeongsang Province (Gyeongsangnam-do) in the southeastern part of the country, and concerns a footprint made by a baby theropod dinosaur which is being described as the smallest of that type ever found.

The print is dated at between 112 to 125 myo and measures a mere 1.27cm (0.5”) long by 1.06cm (0.4”) wide and is estimated to be made by a theropod only 10cm (4”) tall – possibly freshly hatched. The fossil itself has been given the name of Minisauripus ichnosp, meaning “small dinosaur footprint.”

According to the researchers involved it is roughly 29% smaller than the previous record holder, a 1.78cm long (0.7”) by (0.45”) wide print found on the Isle of Skye in Scotland.



Further Reading:

Ancient Human Fossil Discovered on Jeju

World's Smallest Baby Dinosaur Footprint Discovered

World's smallest dinosaur footprint found

The fragments of a partial skull and lower jaw of a previously unknown genus and species of cerapod ornithischian (bird-hipped) dinosaur that was excavated over a decade ago from an outcropping in the so-called Kuwajimakasekikabe layer of the Kuwajima Formation (Tetori Group) in the city of Hakusan in the Ishikaw Prefecture of central Japan and thought to be approximately 130 myo (Early Cretaceous), has been identified.

The specimen consists of disarticulated bones from the left side of the skull including the mandible and teeth from a single individual. It has been named Albalophosaurus yamaguchiorum with "Albalopho" meaning "white mountain," and Hakusan from the nearby city while "yamaguchiorum" comes from two local residents who coincidentally share the same surname of Yamaguchi and have assisted in the fossil research there for many years.

The fossil displays a tooth alignment along with some other dental features including jaw shape that appear to be somewhat unique though I can’t tell what they might be from what I’ve seen so far. Albalophosaurus is estimated at having been about 130cm (40½”) long with a 10cm (4”) long skull that had 5cm (just under 2”) long jaws.

A phylogenetic analysis, based upon molecular sequencing data and morphological data matrices, confirms that Albalophosaurus has characteristics of both ornithopod and ceratopsian (horned) dinosaurs which means it is tentatively being viewed as a basal member of ceratopsia pending the discovery of more material.

Though several of the news stories state that the fossils are the fourth set of a new dinosaur species to be discovered in Japan the abstract for the paper describing Albalophosaurus notes that it “represents only the third valid dinosaur taxon to be described from Japan.”

The findings were published in the journal of the U.S. Society of Vertebrate Paleontology earlier this month.



Further Reading:

A New Ornithischian Dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous Kuwajima Formation of Japan Abstract

Fossils of new herbivorous dinosaur species found in Ishikawa

New dinosaur discovered in Ishikawa

Fossils of new herbivorous dinosaur species found in Japan

Well here’s a surprise

It appears that those who complained about the discovery of Darwinius masillae, or “Ida” being grossly overhyped with exaggerated claims are being vindicated according to a thorough examination of the bones of 117 primates, both living and extinct (including 24 adapids counting “Ida”), that compares and contrasts 360 features in the bones and which throws Ida's alleged direct line of ancestry to humans into serious doubt.



Further Reading:

Convergent evolution of anthropoid-like adaptations in Eocene adapiform primates Abstract

So Ida's not the "missing link": questions and answers with Erik Seiffert Interview with lead author of new study

Primate fossil 'not an ancestor'

Fossil hailed as Man's ancestor is 'not even close relative'

Breaking the Link - Darwinius revealed as ancestor of nothing

Afradapis and "Ida", sittin' in a tree...




Hat tip to SteveF at TalkRational

The recent examination of some tiny fossilized leg bones that were discovered along fragments of skulls (primarily partial jaws), vertebrae, and forelimbs in Fruita in western Colorado about 10 miles east of Utah 30 years ago have revealed that they belonged to adults meaning they belonged to the smallest dinosaurs ever found in North America.

The new dinosaur is named Fruitadens haagarorum, the first part is a combination of the location the fossils came from along with the Latin word for tooth while the second is in honor of Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County Board of Trustees President Paul Haaga.

The fossils date from approximately 150 mya (Late Jurassic) and came from at least four individuals who were only 70cm (27½”) long and probably weighed between half and three-quarters of a kilogram (1.1 to 1.7 lb) and a member of the order of dinosaurs known as ornithischians (bird-hipped dinosaurs) that are generally herbivorous.

But it appears that Fruitadens may not have been a vegetarian like most other ornithischians. This is because they possessed an unusual assortment of teeth for a reptile. Fruitadens had different shaped teeth including canine-like ones at the front of its lower mandible and leaf-shaped “molars” along its cheeks. Such a combination indicates an omnivorous diet which probably consisted of vegetation, eggs, insects and small animals.

The tooth combination means Fruitadens was also a heterodontosaurid ornithischian, considerably smaller than most of the other members of this family, previously unknown in North America, and one of the latest surviving members of the group.

According to the lead author of the paper describing the identification of Fruitadens, Richard Butler of the Bavarian State Collection for Palaeontology in Munich, Germany as well as the Natural History Museum in London, "This is unusual for that group - most of them were strict herbivores. But if you're small, it's hard to feed on just vegetation, as it's difficult to digest."

Butler describes Fruitadens as an agile and fast runner darting about between the legs of much larger dinosaurs like the gigantic sauropods and notes that they also probably had a fuzzy outgrowth along the curve of its spine that might be evidence for a precursor of feathers being present there.

This later assertion appears to be based on the fact that proto-feathers have been associated with other heterodontosaurids rather than the discovery of something resembling quill knobs on the vertebrae of Fruitadens.



Further Reading:

Lower limits of ornithischian dinosaur body size inferred from a new Upper Jurassic heterodontosaurid from North America Abstract & Paper pdf format

Tiny dinosaur species identified

Smallest dinosaur in North America uncovered

Tiniest Dinosaur in North America Found

Tiny dinosaur makes home at Natural History Museum of L.A. County

Tiny Dinosaur Lived Among Giants

Originally posted by rogue06

It is the stuff of Indiana Jones’ worst nightmares. The remains of a snaked that lived approximately 60 mya, and was probably an early ancestor of a modern boa constrictor, was far larger than any snake living today.

The enormous fossils represent an as yet unnamed species and was at a minimum 12.8 meters (42’) long and weighed more than a ton. Very few snakes today exceed 9.1 meters (30’) in length with the record holder being a reticulated python that measured 10 meters (nearly 33’) long.

The ancient snake was unearthed at a coal mine in northern Colombia by Jonathan Bloch, a vertebrate paleontologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida in Gainesville, and colleagues. The remains consist of fragmented ribs and a little over a dozen vertebrae; each of which is roughly 10cm (almost 4”) across.

That is approximately double the width of the largest vertebra taken from a 6 meter (19½’) long, modern-day anaconda, another modern relative, Bloch notes.

Since estimating a snake’s length from fragmentary fossilized remains is complicated because the majority of the creature’s vertebrae differ only in their size, not in their proportions, this means it can’t be readily determined whether the segment that they unearthed came from the thickest portion of the snake. Hence the estimates of the snake’s size and weight are minimum values.



Further Reading:

Fossil find may document largest snake

Originally posted by rogue06

UPDATE:

The snake fossil, found in the open pit mines of Cerrejon in northeastern Colombia, has been named Titanoboa cerrejonensis and has just been described in a paper just published in the journal Nature.

Apparently Titanoboa was 13 meters (42’) long and weighed 1140kg (2500lbs) easily making it the largest snake ever known. By comparison the longest modern snake is the reticulated python (10 meters – 32’) and the heaviest snake today is the green anaconda (250kg – 550lbs).

"At its greatest width, the snake would have come up to about your hips. The size is pretty amazing," said co-author P. David Polly, from Indiana University.

The researchers are using Titanoboa’s massive size to help estimate the temperature of northern South America 58 to 60 mya. Basically, the upper size limits of cold-blooded animals such as snakes, increases as temperatures climb since their metabolism is more or less controlled by the average temperature of its environment.

The flora already collected from Cerrejon has indicated the area was a tropical rainforest.

Titanoboa's size indicates that it lived in an environment where the average yearly temperature was between 30-34 degrees Celsius (86-93 degrees Fahrenheit) while today the average temperature of the nearby city of Cartagena is 28 degrees Celsius (82.4 degrees Fahrenheit). This estimate corresponds with paleoclimatic models predicting greenhouse conditions which show that the average temperature was substantially warmer than what we see in tropical rainforests today.



Further Reading:

Giant boid snake from the Palaeocene neotropics reveals hotter past equatorial temperatures Abstract

Titanoboa - Titanic Boa Fossil From Colombia Is World's Largest Snake

Titanoboa - thirteen metres, one tonne, largest snake ever.

Largest snake 'as long as a bus'

Giant snakes scary, but useful as climate calibrators

Titanic ancient snake was as long as Tyrannosaurus

World's largest snake discovered in fossilized rainforest

Further Update:

Continued research and excavations at the site where Titanoboa was discovered, namely Colombia's Cerrejón coal mine, has unearthed evidence that the site is the earliest known modern rainforest, or neotropical rainforest we have discovered to date.

The researchers note that pollen evidence indicates that the rainforests found in South America prior to the K-T extinction event roughly 65 mya were dramatically different from the fossil tropical rainforest at Cerrejón. The researchers based their conclusion after examining over 2000 fossil leaves.

They found several new plant families being represented in the 60 myo rainforest as well as a three-tiered structure of forest floor, understory shrubs and high canopy plants. Many of the plant fossils are of palm, legume, and flowering species that still dominate South America's rainforests.

In fact, some of the leaves and pods of plants in the bean family and leaves of the hibiscus family are among the oldest, reliable evidence of these groups. The researchers state that this was the first time we have the plant families Arecaceae, Araceae, Fabaceae, Lauraceae, Malvaceae and Menispermaceae (which remain among the most commonly encountered plant families encountered in a rainforest) are all seen together.

Based upon the shape of the fossilized leafs (smooth-margined and with long “drip tips”) along with the massive size of the cold-blooded Titanoboa, the research think that the ancient rainforest had an average annual rainfall of over 2.5 meters (98½”) and was warmer by up to 5 degrees Celsius (41 degrees Fahrenheit) more than rainforests are today when all areas in that temperature range are arid, indicating that rainforests can flourish during periods of higher temperatures.

The rainforest also contained fewer plant species than what we see today. Comparison of the diversity of this fossil flora to the forest density of today’s Amazon and to the diversity of pollen from other Paleocene rainforests demonstrated that there are fewer species at this site than one would expect to find. Insect-feeding damage on leaves shows that they could have been eaten by herbivores with a very general diet instead of insects specific to certain host plants.

The researchers think that this lower diversity could be the result of either a new kind of plant community that still hadn't had time to diversify, or the rainforest was still recovering from the cataclysmic mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous some 5 million years earlier.

The researchers hope to find an examine more sites in Columbia from the same time to see if the patterns discovered at Cerrejón hold up. They would also like to study more sites from the times that bracket the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous to try to comprehend how the various interactions seen in modern rainforests first came to be.



Further Reading:

Late Paleocene fossils from the Cerrejon Formation, Colombia, are the earliest record of Neotropical rainforest Abstract & Paper pdf

First Neotropical Rainforest Was Home Of The Titanoboa -- World's Biggest Snake

World's Biggest Snake Lived in 1st "Modern" Rain Forest

Evidence found of neotropical rainforest

Researchers have recently examined over 4200 fossilized bones dated at about 125 myo (Early Cretaceous) from a variety of dinosaurs of all ages and sizes that were excavated from the incredibly fossil-rich Dalton Wells Quarry just west of Arches National Park, near modern day Moab in southeastern Utah, and found that 97% of them were fractured or even pulverized.

Due to the location of this dense collection of fossilized bones (next to the shore of an ancient lakebed), it appears that large numbers of dinosaurs died here on probably more than one occasion, most likely during drought cycles as the lake would periodically dry up. Presently, a minimum of 67 individuals representing at least eight genera, have been identified and experts think that only 5% of the locality has been worked.

Examination of the broken bones disclosed that, because many had sustained angled breaks known as “greenstick” fractures, the bones had been shattered before they became brittle. Considering that some of these fresh bones were almost 5’ (1.5 meters) long would require incredible pressure to break them

The researchers, led by Brooks Britt, a geologist at Brigham Young University, believe they were probably trampled by other dinosaurs, most likely large herbivorous sauropods and iguanodontids as they passed through not long after they died. As Britt noted, most of the bones would have been easily crushed under the weight of 20 ton dinosaurs. In fact, some of the bones were crushed multiple times as they would be scattered again and again.

Britt thinks that as the other dinosaurs stepped on the larger bones you could have heard them crunch and crack, especially the larger ones, as they made their way through them, “Those would have been audible, big snaps.”

The researchers report that theropod tooth marks are uncommon on the bones found thus far at the site, suggesting little scavenging by carnivorous dinosaurs, though damage from thumb-sized osteophagous insects was common and severe, resulting in substantial damage to articular surfaces.



Further Reading:

Taphonomy of debris-flow hosted dinosaur bonebeds at Dalton Wells, Utah (Lower Cretaceous, Cedar Mountain Formation, USA) Abstract

Crushed Bones Reveal Literal Dino Stomping Ground

Crushed Bones Tell an Ancient Story Audio interview

Scientist: Dinos trampled after death by own kind

Bones hint at dinosaur stomping ground

It seems that every few months the discovery of the newest biggest one of these is being announced.



What is being described as the newest contender for the largest pliosaur yet discovered has been announced; this time the contender was unearthed in Weymouth Bay in Dorset along the Jurassic Coast in southwest England and is apparently between 140 and 155 myo.

Pliosaurs were related to plesiosaur, an extinct carnivorous marine reptile and had short necks with large crocodile-like heads with incredibly powerful jaws full of long, sharp teeth. They utilized four paddle-like limbs to drive their bulky bodies through the water, and would have preyed on dolphin-like ichthyosaurs and even other plesiosaurs.

Discovered by amateur fossil hunter Kevan Sheehan, who spent the next few years digging it out, the fossil consists of an enormous lower jaw and skull. The jaw is only missing a small section from the very front of its jaw, which may have eroded out decades before the rest was discovered. The skull, which is rarely found, is described as being about 90% complete and in roughly 25 large fragments and many smaller pieces. Even better, the few times the skull is found it is usually crushed and flattened whereas this one is pretty much in 3-D and not much distorted.

But what has researchers excited is the sheer size of the discovery. Its head measures 2.4 meters (7’ 10½”) long, which means that this pliosaur probably measured somewhere between 10 and 16 meters (32’ 9¾” to 52’ 6”) in total length.

If this pliosaur is at the upper end of the estimate then that would make it larger than the creatures called "The Monster" and "Predator X" recently excavated at Svalbard in northern Norway and thought to measure 15 meters (just over 49’) long and rival the "Monster of Aramberri" from Mexico believed to have been of similar dimensions.

As one of those examining the new discovery, Dr David Martill of Portsmouth University added: "We only have the head, so you cannot be absolutely precise, but it may be vying with the ones found in Svalbard and Mexico for the title of the world's largest."

And the fact that so far only the head has been discovered makes the measurement a bit speculative when you consider that among the different species of pliosaurs known there is no uniform head-to-body ratio. Add to that Martill’s statement that it “contains features that have not been seen before. It could be a species new to science." If the different species have varying ratios, then if this find represents a previously unknown species, all calculations seem incredibly iffy.

The researchers think there is a chance that the rest of the body may still be entombed in the rock behind the cliff face and will provide further details in upcoming decades but it seems more probable that the body isn’t there.

When a large marine creature dies their corpse may float for quite awhile before finally sinking down to the ocean bottom. During the time the body remains afloat it is scavenged on and frequently the head, which is heavy, falls off first, while the rest of the body is buoyed up by the air in the lungs and continues to float.

Pliosaurhead.jpg

Further Reading:

Colossal 'sea monster' unearthed includes a short video on its jaws but HERE is the video without commercial

Fossil hunter spent five years digging for skull of pliosaur sea monster

Giant Skull of 12m Pliosaur 'Sea Monster' Unearthed in England

Skull of huge sea monster that could have eaten T. rex found in Dorset

A nearly complete and exquisitely well-preserved fossilized skull from a carnivorous dinosaur that was excavated nearly a hundred years ago while digging a reservoir close to Minchinhampton in Gloucestershire in western England and has sat essentially overlooked in London’s Museum of Natural History has been identified as the most ancient tyrannosaurid yet discovered. IOW, it is the oldest-known fossil relative of Tyrannosaurus rex.

The skull itself is only 30cm (just under 1’) long and belonged to a dinosaur that lived roughly 165 mya during the middle Jurassic, approximately 100 million years before the T. rex, which lived at the end of the Cretaceous. It was initially misclassified as belonging to a new species of Megalosaurus, but was later recognized as representing an otherwise unknown genus, which was named Proceratosaurus.

Yet despite being one of the better preserved dinosaur skulls found in Europe it has basically sat unstudied in the Natural Histsory Museum in London since 1942.

That changed when an international team led by Dr. Oliver Rauhut of the Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich and the Bavarian State Collection for Paleontology and Geology, and Dr. Angela Milner, Associate Keeper of Paleontology at the Natural History Museum in London examined the fragile skull using computed tomography (CT) techniques to generate a 3-D image of the skull in order to study its internal structure in fine detail.

In spite of the obvious differences in size of the skulls, the analysis revealed that Proceratosaurus shared many traits with its descendant T. rex. It had smaller versions of the serrated banana-shaped teeth seen in T. rex, as well as similar features in the jaws and cranial cavity.

Proceratosaurus was probably only around 3 meters (9’11”) long and weighed somewhere between 40 and 60kg (88 to 132lbs.). In contrast, an adult T. rex was at least 13 meters (42½ long) and could weigh up to 7200kg (16,000lbs. – 8 tons).

The paper describing the re-identification was published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.



Further Reading:

Cranial osteology and phylogenetic position of the theropod dinosaur Proceratosaurus bradleyi (Woodward, 1910) from the Middle Jurassic of England Abstract

T.rex's oldest ancestor identified

Oldest T. rex relative identified with video

The humble beginnings of a king: Earliest tyrannosauroid (re)discovered

Examination of the left maxilla (upper jaw) and nasal bones or snout of a late juvenile aged (roughly 11 or 12 years old) Tyrannosaurus rex dug out of the Hell Creek formation in Montana revealed a series of four oblong-shaped punctures that suggest they were made by the bite of another T. rex of a similar age.

The bit T. rex is known as “Jane” and is a prize specimen on display at the Burpee Museum of Natural History in Illinois, and was named for a donor to the museum. The sex of the specimen itself is actually unknown. “Jane” was approximately 6.7 meters (22’ long) and probably weighed about 680kg (1500lbs.).

The bite that “Jane” took was serious but not life-threatening and resulted in a permanent disfiguring injury, causing a slight warping and curving of the snout and upper jaw on the left side, though the damage wasn’t severe enough to have interfered with its ability to eat or bite.

"Jane has what we call a boxer's nose," said researcher Joe Peterson, a Ph.D. candidate in geology at Northern Illinois University (NIU) and lead author of the study published in the November issue of the journal Palaios. "Her snout bends slightly to the left. It was probably broken and healed back crooked." That the wounds did heal was verified by CT scans that showed a good deal of time had passed since the injury when the dinosaur died.

The reason the researchers think “Jane” was bit by another juvenile T. rex is partly because of the oblong-shape of the bite marks. Older T. rex and crocodilians have more conical shaped teeth eliminating them as candidates.

But even more, the morphology of the holes, as well as their positioning and orientation are compatible with the jaws of “Jane,” which indicates that the bite marks were likely the result of a bite from an attacker of similar size and species as the bite victim.

"When we looked at the jaw and teeth of Jane, we realized her bite would have produced a very close match to the injuries on her own face," Peterson said. "That leads us to believe she was attacked by a member of the same species that was about the same age. Because the wound had healed, we think this happened when Jane was possibly a few years younger."

Being that “Jane” hadn’t yet reached sexual maturity, the incident that resulted in the bite wasn’t likely over mating disputes but might have been caused by instinctive need to conflict over dominance or territory. Peterson noted that modern birds and especially juvenile crocodilians "all start to exhibit aggressive behavior towards members of the same species prior to reaching sexual maturity."

The researchers were also sure to note that the holes found on “Jane’s” upper jaw were not anything like the lesions found on several other T. rex, including the largest and most complete one “Sue,” that have been linked to trichomonosis, a parasitic disease that infects the mandible or lower jaw.



Further Reading:

FACE BITING ON A JUVENILE TYRANNOSAURID AND BEHAVIORAL IMPLICATIONS Abstract

T. Rex Teens Fought, Disfigured Each Other

Bite Marks Show T. Rex Teens Fought Viciously

Terrible Teens Of T. Rex: Young Tyrannosaurs Did Serious Battle Against Each Other

While apparently working on perfecting a new technique involving scanning electron microscopes and transmission electron microscopes that can meticulously examine details on fossils down to millionths of millimeters, researchers have found organically preserved muscle tissue by the spine inside an 18 myo salamander that had been excavated from three ancient lakebeds in southern Spain.

The research suggests that soft tissues may be more common in the fossil record than previously thought.

“In the past 20 years or so we have developed a much better understanding of the processes involved in exceptional preservation,” Dr Patrick Orr from the University College Dublin’s School of Geological Sciences, and one of the authors describing the find in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, observed. “This has been matched by advances in the latest imaging technologies that allow very close scrutiny of minute biological structures that might otherwise be missed.”



Further Reading:

And more soft tissue - this time from a 18Mya salamander Thread started by wattsr1 here at Tweb.

Ancient muscle tissue extracted from 18 million year old fossil

Secrets of ancient fossils revealed by Irish scientist

The discovery of several teeth, including upper molars, from what has been identified as a new primitive marsupial-like form identified as a basal taxon of Marsupialiformes, has been unearthed in Charente-Maritime, France (the region north of the Gironde estuary that leads to Bordeaux on the coast of the Bay of Biscay) and dated at being approximately 99 myo.

This early, extinct marsupial has been identified as a member of a new clade that includes the crown group Marsupialia and primitive stem lineages more closely related to Marsupialia than to Deltatheroida. IOW, it represents one of the oldest and most primitive known Marsupialiformes discovered to date.

The fact that the fossils were found in Europe is exceedingly important in that very few if any mammal remains prior to the end of the Cretaceous have ever been found, and none from this period. The discovery presents significant new information on the history of early mammals in Europe.

The creature has been named Arcantiodelphys marchandi, and it shares a number of significant marsupial-like features with marsupials known from North America during the middle of the Cretaceous. This confirms the suspected faunal links between North America and Western Europe during this time.

Further, the presence of Arcantiodelphys in Europe during the Cretaceous, and its relation to marsupials of North America raise questions about models concerning the dispersal routes taken by the earliest marsupial mammals since it is from these primitive ancestors that today’s marsupials colonized South America and then Australia by way of Antarctica.



Further Reading:

The oldest modern therian mammal from Europe and its bearing on stem marsupial paleobiogeography Abstract

Discovery Of The Oldest European Marsupial In Southwest France