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Fossil female pterosaur found with preserved egg
BBC News ^ | 02/01/2011 | Jonathan Amos

Posted on 02/01/2011 11:58:12 AM PST by SeekAndFind

For fossil hunters, it represents one of those breakthrough moments.

A pterosaur has been found in China beautifully preserved with an egg.

The egg indicates this ancient flying reptile was a female, and that realisation has allowed researchers to sex these creatures for the first time.

Writing in Science magazine, the palaeontologists make some broad statements about differences in pterosaurs, including the observation that only males sported a head-crest.

David Unwin, a palaeobiologist in the Department of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester, was part of the research team.

He told the BBC the discovery was astonishing: "If somebody had said to me a few years back that we would find this kind of association, I would just have laughed and said, 'yeah, maybe in a million years', because these sorts of things are incredibly rare."

Pterosaurs, also sometimes referred to as pterodactyls, dominated the skies in the Mesozoic Era, 220-65 million years ago. Although reptiles like the dinosaurs were plodding on the ground below them, they were not actually dinosaurs themselves - a common misconception.

This particular specimen has been dated to about 160 million years ago.

It was found by Junchang Lü and colleagues and excavated from sedimentary rocks in the famous fossil-hunting grounds of Liaoning Province in China. Liaoning has yielded many of the great finds in recent years, including a series of feathered dinos that have transformed thinking on bird evolution.

(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...


TOPICS: History; Science
KEYWORDS: evolution; fossils; godsgravesglyphs; preservedegg; pterosaur
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To: absolootezer0

last thursday-ism.

Maybe God created everything last Thursday with a made up history and false memories.

It wouldn’t be beyond HIS power.

But would it matter?

If the “fake” evidence that the world existed before last Thursday is all internally consistent and allows for explanation and useful prediction - then the “reality” that it all started last Thursday is of absolutely no practical use.

Similarly, if the “fake” evidence that the Earth is billions of years old is all internally consistent and allows for explanation and useful prediction - then the “reality” that it all started a few thousand years ago is of absolutely no practical use.


21 posted on 02/01/2011 12:31:35 PM PST by allmendream (Tea Party did not send the GOP to D.C. to negotiate the terms of our surrender to socialism.)
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To: Greenbow

You have no earthly idea what time relations God referred to. We cannot begin to fathom His greatness and wonder. God is so magnificent that humans cannot begin to comprehend his vast universe and beyond. Just some of the views through the Hubble telescope reveals the enormous universe in terms we can’t even grasp.


22 posted on 02/01/2011 12:32:53 PM PST by ImNotLying
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To: null and void

Sure looks like the outline of a crest in those photographs. Maybe both male and female had crests? Or was this a male guarding the egg?

Ptero-papa.


23 posted on 02/01/2011 12:37:22 PM PST by MilicaBee
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To: allmendream

it would be a thursday. i never could get the hang of thursdays.


24 posted on 02/01/2011 12:37:52 PM PST by absolootezer0 (2x divorced tattooed pierced harley hatin meghan mccain luvin' REAL beer drinkin' smoker ..what?)
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To: absolootezer0

“...and a particular fondness for round fuzzy hats.”

Well played!


25 posted on 02/01/2011 12:40:59 PM PST by allmendream (Tea Party did not send the GOP to D.C. to negotiate the terms of our surrender to socialism.)
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To: MilicaBee

More like the entire top of the skull is missing. There is enough of the beak to show no crest, though.


26 posted on 02/01/2011 12:45:15 PM PST by null and void (We are now in day 742 of our national holiday from reality. - 0bama really isn't one of US.)
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To: ImNotLying

Why’d that pterosaur cross the road?


27 posted on 02/01/2011 12:49:13 PM PST by FroggyTheGremlim (My memory's not as sharp as it used to be. Also, my memory's not as sharp as it used to be.)
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To: Greenbow

And your proof of the Earth’s age is?


28 posted on 02/01/2011 12:58:08 PM PST by nuke rocketeer (File CONGRESS.SYS corrupted: Re-boot Washington D.C (Y/N)?)
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To: SeekAndFind
How come there ain`t no fully fossilzed women with eggs?

All I ever see are pieces of jaws and skulls

How come women fossils are always in pieces and dinosaurs are always in one piece??

Doesn`t make any sense at all...

Looks like 2 entirely different geological processses occurring--

Sounds fishy to me...

29 posted on 02/01/2011 1:44:03 PM PST by bunkerhill7
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To: SeekAndFind

And they both got govered in mud at the same time right? What could do such a thing?


30 posted on 02/01/2011 1:53:23 PM PST by vpintheak (Democrats: Robbing humans of their dignity 1 law at a time)
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To: SeekAndFind

``The first of Ardi’s bones, a single tooth, was discovered in 1992, not far from where Lucy’s skeleton was buried in the fossil-rich Afar Rift of Ethiopia. Later, more than 100 other pieces, including bits of a skull, hand, foot and pelvis, were eased out of the volcanic soil and reassembled.``

www2.ljworld.com/r/303/506653/


31 posted on 02/01/2011 1:55:38 PM PST by bunkerhill7
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To: SeekAndFind

32 posted on 02/01/2011 2:10:32 PM PST by JoeProBono (A closed mouth gathers no feet - Visualize)
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To: commonguymd

Takes me back to my 3 labors when I declared “I have changed my mind. I don’t want it.”


33 posted on 02/01/2011 2:18:15 PM PST by Protect the Bill of Rights
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To: eCSMaster

Because chickens had not evolved yet, you silly goose.


34 posted on 02/01/2011 2:39:56 PM PST by ImNotLying
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To: FrogMom; decimon; StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 1010RD; 21twelve; 24Karet; ...

· GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach ·
· join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic · subscribe ·

 
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 Excerpt, or Link only?
 


Thanks FrogMom!

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.
 

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· Science topic · science keyword · Books/Literature topic · pages keyword ·


35 posted on 02/01/2011 2:54:49 PM PST by SunkenCiv (The 2nd Amendment follows right behind the 1st because some people are hard of hearing.)
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To: SeekAndFind

There are some dinosaur bones in the Chicago Museum of Natural History that we know the exact age of down to the month. Here’s how I know. I asked the guard there how old the bones were and he said 73 million, four years, and six months. When I asked him how he knew their age so precisely, he said, “Well, the dinosaur bones were 73 million years old when I started working here 4 and 1/2 years ago.


36 posted on 02/01/2011 3:10:48 PM PST by ImNotLying
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To: Greenbow

>> This is a pro God site, and God tells us that the earth is NOT 160 million years old.<<

So you put God into a box that is only 6700-7000 years? You do understand that He existed long before that don’t you? Do some research on the gap between Gen 1:1 and Gen 1:2. It will be enlightening to you if you pray for guidance before you do the research and then listen.


37 posted on 02/01/2011 3:22:01 PM PST by CynicalBear
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To: Greenbow

Wow, that makes me want to go to your church.


38 posted on 02/01/2011 4:25:30 PM PST by Rebelbase
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To: ImNotLying
Because chickens had not evolved yet, you silly goose.

Then what did the Colsandersausrus eat?

39 posted on 02/01/2011 4:26:40 PM PST by null and void (We are now in day 742 of our national holiday from reality. - 0bama really isn't one of US.)
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To: null and void

Oh cmon man, of course he ate the other white meat, Mrs Sanderasaurus.


40 posted on 02/01/2011 7:40:46 PM PST by ImNotLying
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