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Post by Deleted on Nov 9, 2011 18:31:34 GMT -6
From Alaska Dispatch Read More: www.alaskadispatch.com/article/new-dinosaur-species-discovered-alaska-named-honor-ross-perotNew dinosaur species discovered in Alaska, named in honor of Ross Perot Yereth Rosen | Nov 08, 2011When paleontologist Tony Fiorillo made one of the most stunning dinosaur discoveries in Alaska, a NOVA television crew was there to capture the moment. But it now turns out that the skull he unearthed in front of the cameras in 2006, a highlight of the 2008 NOVA documentary “Arctic Dinosaurs,” was more significant than previously thought.
The skull and associated bones from a steep bank of the Colville River in Alaska's Arctic are from a species of horned dinosaur that has not been documented anywhere else.
Years of research by Fiorillo, curator of the Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas, and painstaking reconstruction by Ronald Tykoski, the museum’s chief fossil preparator, confirmed that this was a type of pachyrhinosaurus -- a relative of triceratops -- that had not been found anywhere else.
“Obviously, it’s a tremendous thrill to have that level of photo-documentation at the moment of discovery. And this enhances it. This is the wildest dream possible,” he said.
They have named the dinosaur species Pachyrhinosaurs perotorum, in honor of former presidential candidate Ross Perot and his family, major benefactors of the Dallas museum.
Read More: www.alaskadispatch.com/article/new-dinosaur-species-discovered-alaska-named-honor-ross-perot
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Post by skywalker on Nov 9, 2011 18:55:16 GMT -6
Oooohh!! I like dinosaurs! They are my favorite. I wish the stupid scientists would quit being idiots about them though. They are still trying to say the dinosaurs were cold-blooded even though all of the evidence says they were warm-blooded. How big of a hammer do you need to hit these people over the head with to get them to wake up and quit being igannant? Here is what the article had to say about it... The Alaska dinosaur discoveries have caused scientists to re-evaluate theories about the animals being cold-blooded and about how they went extinct about 65 million years ago. The North Slope findings support the theory that at least some dinosaurs were warm-blooded and thus able to survive in cold climates.See? More evidence that they were warm blooded and yet they still refuse to accept it. If they can't even change their minds about something that has already been proven as a fact then there is no way they will ever change their minds about UFOs and aliens. Scientists are hopeless.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 9, 2011 19:00:14 GMT -6
Hmm... interesting skywalker. But... I thought during the time of the dinosaurs Pangaea was in existence... back then they theorized (I thought...) that Alaska was once on the equator and that's why they have found fossilized foliage of a jungle up here and that's why we have so much oil... It wouldn't have been a cold place during the time of Pangaea... but maybe this dinosaur was found to not be as old as Pangaea? ~shrug~
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Post by skywalker on Nov 10, 2011 9:29:56 GMT -6
The Earth used to be much warmer than it is now. The atmosphere was thicker and the climate was relatively uniform all over the planet...especially during the time of the supercontinents. There were still warming and cooling periods like we have now but it tended more towards the warm rather than the cool, although there were several times when Ice Ages did develop even billions of years ago.
During the time of Pangea, the continent was very arid and dry, especially in the inner part of it. The outer edges were more tropical due to their close proximity to the oceans. This is when the dinosaurs began to emerge as the dominant life form because they were ideally suited to the conditions that were present. When the continents started breaking apart and moving around the globe that is when the climates of the individual landmasses started to change dramatically. Some areas were hot and dry, others warm and moist, others cold and freezing...pretty much the way it is today, but still trending towards the warm side. Dinosaurs had to evolve to meet the changing conditions they encountered, and because they were more isolated from each other by the separate land masses there was more diversity among the species.
What all this means is that the climates of the landmasses were constantly changing and dinosaurs were forced to evolve to adapt to those changing conditions just like other lifeforms do. There are mammals living in extremely arid areas, (like camels in the desert) and extremely cold ones (like polar bears at the north pole). Birds, which are very close relatives of the dinosaurs, also exist in both extremes. Penguins live in the snow and ice while ostraches run amok on the arid plains of Africa. Dinosaurs would have done the same thing.
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Post by paulette on Nov 10, 2011 10:05:58 GMT -6
Good synopsis Skywalker.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 10, 2011 18:10:33 GMT -6
~sigh~ no Sky if one follows you home you cannot keep it!
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Post by Deleted on Nov 10, 2011 18:49:29 GMT -6
~sigh~ no Sky if one follows you home you cannot keep it! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------What if it's only a tiny little tyrannosaurus ? He could even call it "Rex".
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Post by Deleted on Nov 10, 2011 20:12:23 GMT -6
He would...that's the problem LOL
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Post by Deleted on Nov 11, 2011 0:36:16 GMT -6
He would...that's the problem LOL ;D
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Post by skywalker on Nov 11, 2011 8:44:44 GMT -6
~sigh~ no Sky if one follows you home you cannot keep it!
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Post by bewildered on Nov 11, 2011 10:55:19 GMT -6
Take heart, sky: birds are the last surviving dinosaurs. Buy a parrot, own a slice of earth's history. ;D They definitely were not reptiles. Like mammals, they were able to regulate their body temperature internally. I personally think that the size of the last dinosaurs contributed to their demise; at the time of the last known extinction event (the one that claimed all of the dinosaurs except for some bird species), those suckers were huge. Their origins were humble: the first known dinosaurs in the fossil record were very small - midgets in the world at that time. They were enormously successful, though, and eventually emerged as the dominant animal species for millions of years. What's amazing to me is how over time the dinosaurs increased exponentially in size...from smaller than a chicken to almost 100 feet in length like Apatosaurus (Brontosaurus). Their demise reminds me of a much more recent extinction event: the one that claimed the last of the mammalian mega fauna, such as the mammoths. 20,000 years ago we had towering mammoths, humongous lions, and titanic bears roaming the countryside. What really happened to them? A comet? The isles at the supermarket were bare? Hunted to extinction by our ancestors? Hmm.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 11, 2011 11:00:29 GMT -6
College Park Airport is the oldest continuing operated airport in the US. They actually have an odd claim to fame in that they have the fossilized tracks of Pterodactyl's landing..where their feet have dug in and pushed off. Now THAT's an airport
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Post by bewildered on Nov 11, 2011 11:03:08 GMT -6
What all this means is that the climates of the landmasses were constantly changing and dinosaurs were forced to evolve to adapt to those changing conditions just like other lifeforms do. There are mammals living in extremely arid areas, (like camels in the desert) and extremely cold ones (like polar bears at the north pole). Birds, which are very close relatives of the dinosaurs, also exist in both extremes. Penguins live in the snow and ice while ostraches run amok on the arid plains of Africa. Dinosaurs would have done the same thing. An emerging school of thought considers birds to be dinosaurs - not just relatives - as some recent (as well as not-so-recent) finds indicate that some dinosaurs were feathered. They also seemed to possess similar bone architecture. From what I understand, there is precious little genetic difference between scales and feathers...a simple mutation of a gene produces feathers from scales. Some are convinced that some dinosaur species possessed both scales and feathers on their bodies.
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Post by bewildered on Nov 11, 2011 11:03:52 GMT -6
College Park Airport is the oldest continuing operated airport in the US. They actually have an odd claim to fame in that they have the fossilized tracks of Pterodactyl's landing..where their feet have dug in and pushed off. Now THAT's an airport LOL, nice!
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Post by Deleted on Nov 11, 2011 11:14:00 GMT -6
An emerging school of thought considers birds to be dinosaurs - not just relatives - as some recent (as well as not-so-recent) finds indicate that some dinosaurs were feathered. They also seemed to possess similar bone architecture. From what I understand, there is precious little genetic difference between scales and feathers...a simple mutation of a gene produces feathers from scales. Some are convinced that some dinosaur species possessed both scales and feathers on their bodies. Evolution is a beautiful thing. =)
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Post by bewildered on Nov 11, 2011 11:23:29 GMT -6
Evolution is a beautiful thing. =) Yes indeed. I should have clarified above when I was responding to sky: birds are beginning to be considered a type of dinosaur. It could very well be that, being a more successful line of dinosaurs, they decreased in size in response to changing conditions, thus insuring their survival from whatever happened 65 million years ago.
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Post by paulette on Nov 11, 2011 17:04:11 GMT -6
Weren't there also reptilian derived dinosaurs - those giant crocodile like creatures and such? There were the bird-hipped and not bird-hipped....or is that theory obsolete??
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Post by skywalker on Nov 11, 2011 21:19:28 GMT -6
There were actually three different lineages of dinosaurs that branched off very soon after the dinosaurs first evolved. The first was the Ornithischians, which had a pubic bone that was rotated backwards in a structure very similar to modern day birds. All of these dinosaurs had a hard bony beak and they were all herbivorous, meaning they ate plants. There were both two legged and four legged varieties.
The second group is called the Saurischians, which had the pubic bone rotated forward making it very similar to modern day reptiles. All of the meat-eating dinosaurs belonged to this group, and many of them had hollow spaces or sacs in their bones making them even more similar than birds than the ornithischians. There were also both two and four-legged varieties of these critters as well. They were not in any way related to the reptiles though.
The third group of dinosaurs is the birds. Bewildered was correct when he stated that birds are living dinosaurs, because they are. They just all happen to have feathers which is the one thing that most people do not associate with the older dinosaurs, even though some of the older dinosaurs did have feathers, or primitive forms of feathers, as well.
Contrary to popular belief, all three of these groups of animals were warm blooded, very quick and energetic, and much more intelligent than the reptiles that they are often compared to. This is why they dominated the planet for so long even though mammals actually evolved at the same point in time as the dinosaurs. The little furry critters never got to be much bigger than a raccoon or a small dog until after most of the dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago. That's when the mammals had their opportunity to flourish, and the many Ice Ages we have had since then have allowed them to use their fur to its full advantage.
Birds still have the most different varieties of species of all of the animals though so in a way dinosaurs are still the most successful of the animals.
By they way, the one thing that distinguishes a dinosaur from all the other animals on the planet is the structure of their hip bones. Dinosaurs have a unique ball and socket joint where the leg bones attach to the hips and they all have the same type of joint. That is how scientists can identify a recently unearthed skeleton as being a dinosaur...they just look at the hip socket.
The only non-dinosaur animal that has a ball and socket hip-bone structure even remotely similar is modern day humans.
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Post by bewildered on Nov 11, 2011 23:48:49 GMT -6
I'm under the impression that dinosaurs and reptiles evolved independently of one another. Both are derivatives of the first amphibians that emerged from the water to live on land (as we ourselves are, for that matter). A crocodilian is the perfect example of a primitive reptile as they might have coexisted alongside dinosaurs.
The dinosaur is a vast improvement over both reptiles and amphibians, of course. I would imagine their intelligence was on par with bird species such as macaws and other large parrots.
Mammals are believed to have split from the reptile lineage hundreds of millions of years ago, as seen in the first mammalian reptiles such as the pelycosaurs or the therapsids (called synapsids). It's interesting that prior to the rise of the dinosaurs, these creatures were the dominant life form on the planet until they suffered a terrible blow during the Permian extinction event. They didn't exactly disappear, though...they lived on in their mammalian descendants, who outcompeted birds to become the dominant life form once again after the Archosaurs (the big dinosoaurs) disappeared 65 million years ago. I find that ironic.
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Post by bewildered on Nov 12, 2011 0:02:15 GMT -6
Birds still have the most different varieties of species of all of the animals though so in a way dinosaurs are still the most successful of the animals. Actually, that title goes to the Insects, the most numerous of the Arthropods. There are over one million known species of Insects in the world, with countless more waiting to be discovered. It's amazing to consider that insects account for over half of all living organisms on the planet! It blows the mind if you sit back and think about it. The next time a mosquito bites you for blood snack, don't feel picked on. You're in a club that stretches back hundreds of millions of years. Those little creeps were sucking the blood of dinosaurs back when the oil reserves of the planet were still percolating deep underground. I would be remiss if I didn't point out that insects have had a tremendous impact on all life on this planet. Plants developed colorful, fragrant flowers in order to attract insect pollinators way back when. They are such an integral part of the life cycle on our planet...if they were to suddenly disappear, life as we know it would end. EDIT: I should add that I think I know what you meant about birds being so successful, in terms of being a higher life form than insects. It's an interesting scenario. First amphibians, then reptiles, then dinosaurs, followed by mammals. The only thing that distrubs me: all along, "behind the scenes" so to speak, were insects. They have existed in their present form - albeit much larger in the past than they are now - for hundreds of millions of years. It boggles my mind. I think birds are a testament to the durability and success of the dinosaurs. From an evolutionary standpoint, they are a marvel. They alone of the dinosaurs survived the last major extinction event, proof of their adaptability and hardiness. The titanic Archosaurs such as T-Rex perished...but the relatively small and unassuming avians lived on. It's a story that mirrors our own. The relatively small and unassuming mammals lived on alongside the dinosaurs. Humans strike me as an anomaly of unprecedented magnitude. The success of the hominid apes seems personified in us. Our cousins - the Gorillas, Chimps, and Orangutans - lead integrated lives with their environments. Yes, they all both use and make tools, but they do not use the tools they make to alter their environment like we do. That might be what first set us apart from them way back when, and caused us to diverge on our evolutionary path. Further, the use of fire set us apart from every other living thing that came before us. It all happened in a logical procession after that: fire, art, mysticism, religion, society, culture, and science. We are physically the weakest of the great apes, yet we are the ascendant species. Only the insects can approach our ability to survive and adapt to diverse climates. Space travel is our final victory, something the roaches haven't achieved yet... ....though I wonder. Were roaches aboard the space shuttles?
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Post by bewildered on Nov 12, 2011 0:54:46 GMT -6
See? More evidence that they were warm blooded and yet they still refuse to accept it. If they can't even change their minds about something that has already been proven as a fact then there is no way they will ever change their minds about UFOs and aliens. Scientists are hopeless. Give them some credit, sky. A scientist is supposed to only be concerned with empirical evidence. Anything else is unverifiable and therefore beyond the concern of science. I for one am glad for this...remember the Inquisitions? Rumor and hearsay was accepted as proof and evidence of "guilt," the consequences which were countless innocent lives sacrificed in the name of those rumors and superstitions. I'm confident that the truth, whatever it is, will triumph. We must be careful, lest we commit the same sins of our forebears and fall victim to our own rumor and superstition.
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Post by skywalker on Nov 12, 2011 17:50:25 GMT -6
EDIT: I should add that I think I know what you meant about birds being so successful, in terms of being a higher life form than insects. It's an interesting scenario. First amphibians, then reptiles, then dinosaurs, followed by mammals. The only thing that disturbs me: all along, "behind the scenes" so to speak, were insects. They have existed in their present form - albeit much larger in the past than they are now - for hundreds of millions of years. It boggles my mind. I did think about the insects, I just don't consider them to be animals. Insects belong in a class all by themselves. What is really amazing about them is that they have remained relatively unchanged for hundreds of millions of years. The same insects we have now are basically the same as what was crawling around when the dinos were here. Other life forms have changed dramatically. The only other group of animals that have remained basically the same is the reptiles. I would assume it is because both the insects and reptiles are cold blooded and therefor evolve more slowly, possibly because they do not need to change so dramatically to adapt to changing conditions. Cold blooded reptiles can not survive in freezing cold temperatures (with a few exceptions when they go into a state of hibernation) so they stay where it is relatively warm, thus there is not as much need for them to evolve. One interesting question I have always wondered is why none of the other dinosaurs survived? There were some dinos from the other two groups that were small and even some that had primitive forms of feathers...why did none of those species survive if the birds were able to?
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Post by skywalker on Nov 12, 2011 17:54:32 GMT -6
Weren't there also reptilian derived dinosaurs - those giant crocodile like creatures and such? There were the bird-hipped and not bird-hipped....or is that theory obsolete?? The giant reptiles are now known to be actual reptiles rather than any relation to the dinosaurs. Even the marine creatures like the Plesiosaurs and the Mosasaurs were marine reptiles. Likewise the same for the winged pterosaurs. They were not related at all to the dinosaurs.
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Post by bewildered on Nov 15, 2011 7:14:38 GMT -6
I did think about the insects, I just don't consider them to be animals. Insects belong in a class all by themselves. What is really amazing about them is that they have remained relatively unchanged for hundreds of millions of years. The same insects we have now are basically the same as what was crawling around when the dinos were here. Other life forms have changed dramatically. The only other group of animals that have remained basically the same is the reptiles. I would assume it is because both the insects and reptiles are cold blooded and therefor evolve more slowly, possibly because they do not need to change so dramatically to adapt to changing conditions. Cold blooded reptiles can not survive in freezing cold temperatures (with a few exceptions when they go into a state of hibernation) so they stay where it is relatively warm, thus there is not as much need for them to evolve. Insects are indeed animals, though I certainly agree far different from what our perception, based upon a familiar model of rigid endoskeleton, regards as familar or alien. They possess multiple eyes...multiple limbs...many sport diaphanous wings...their mouths are a mass of odd appendages...the differences are vast. Nevertheless the arthropods, which the insects comprise the vast majority, are animals and actually a higher life form at that. The insect expression is just completely different than our own. Consider that alone, a solitary ant isn't that impressive. Together as a colony, however, they possess a tanglible intelligence that is eerie to encounter. I understand that not everyone shares my opinion. I can only point to some of the more unusual encounters I have had with ant "supercolonies" that quite frankly, would leave you rather disturbed had you experienced it for yourself. I'll share one such experience (this is a long story, so be warned). I've done a bit of this and that during my lifetime. I spent a number of years in the Pest Control industry in the Southeastern U.S. I inspected buildings and properties for real estate interests; I designed and sold pest control contracts to institutions such as hospitals; I was in the field as a technician who conducted service work personally. I've seen some bad situations (from rats, to termites, and roaches), but none quite so challenging as ant "supercolonies." I inherited a large governmental office building in South Carolina from a technician who quit due to the seemingly impossible challenge he faced with ants throughout the sprawling 5-story building. I conducted an inspection of the building and found that the problem was absolutely horrendous. This particular species of ant, called the Argentine Ant, was literally everywhere. There were in every restroom, every break room, in most of the cubicles on every floor, and even in the *darn* elevator shafts! Employees couldn't even place a cup of coffee on their desk without a line of those little suckers streaming into it 4 minutes later. No one could figure out where they were coming from, and why they seemed to grow more numerous after each visit by my disllusioned former colleague. There is always an explanation, of course. First, I noticed how the lines of worker ants seemed to follow twisting, convoluted paths throughout the building. They were walking high above the baseboards in the stairwells...would descend from the ceiling down electrical conduits to cubicle desks, and avoided certain common, high traffic areas in hallways. I looked at the baseboards throughout the building and discovered why...I found the powdery residue of hypoallergenic pesticide applications all along the baseboards. The former tech had been applying roach extermination techniques on ants, and the result was predictable. He didn't understand...a worker ant can detect contact pesticide applications with their antennae before actually coming into contact with it. The worker will then mark such places with warning chemicals, signals for other ants to steer clear of that place. And steer clear they will. He also was apparently using catalyzed pyrethrin-type aerosol spray (the "instant wasp kill" type, such as Raid) to annihilate exposed lines of workers on direct contact. This is a bad thing to do, because the following happens: Dead worker ants release "OMG! Enemy!!!" chemicals as they die. Other ants, having these super-sensitive antennae, contact that chemical and become alarmed. They race back to the colony and set off a chain reaction that results in the worst possible thing imaginable: the colony buds, sending off an emergency batch of reproductives to create another colony! Dormant reproductives suddenly become activated via pheromes and other chemicals secreted by the workers and the main queen herself. This budding creates a satellite colony that is recognized as the same colony by the orginal colony who created it...this is not good. This means they do not compete with one another. Instead, they cooperate. This budding is what created a 3,600 mile-long supercolony of Argentine Ants that winds across Western Europe. To make a long story short, I discovered two main points of entry for those blasted ants. In the basement structures via plumbing, and from trees whose branches and leaves laid directly against the building. The building maintenance guy didn't believe me until I took him on a tour of the Ant Invasion. When I showed him an 8 inch thick stream of worker ants running from a leaf resting against the glass window of a 3rd strory office window into a gap in insulation where the window met the exterior facia, I made a believer out of him. I forbid the use of contact pesticides by everyone because they were useless and only made the budding worse. The supercolony learned how to avoid being killed by using routes the other technician missed. I employed a combination of hydramethylnon bait and sweet/protein fortified orthoboric acid gel to kill that supercolony from within. The maintenance guy trimmed all the trees and bushes off of the building at my request, and I had the access points in the basement plumbing areas sealed. Week by week, those little suckers declined steadily in number until that building complex was ant-free 60 days later. It was the worst ant problem I had even seen. That supercolony was intelligent, sky. It was eerie. I was under the impression that the smaller species of saurians perished by mid-Triassic, out-competed by true reptiles, the mammal-like synapsids, and the avian dinosaurs. The last archosaurs were tremendous behemoths, the pinnacle of their evolution but perhaps also the last gasp of the form of dinosaur. It would seem the birds were the superior saurian expression.
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Post by skywalker on Nov 15, 2011 20:49:38 GMT -6
Some of the smaller dinosaurs existed all the way up to the very end of the Cretacious, although there did seem to be a general decline in the total number of species both large and small. The decline in numbers may actually just be a lack of preserved skeletons since no dinosaurs existed after the 65 million year extinction event. This abrupt interuption of the species would mean that fewer animals were fossilized than their earleir decendants which were allowed to run their full course.
One of the best examples of the later small dinos would be the velociraptor. These were the vicious little critters made famous by the movie Jurassic Park though they were actually not nearly as big as they were depicted in the movie. In real life a velociraptor was only about 3 feet tall and they had feathers covering their entire bodies, but they were definitely dinosaurs rather than birds. They were not capable of flight, nor did they have a bony beak like all modern birds do. For some reason they, and all the other beakless but feathered dinos, just didn't survive.
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