Posted on 04/01/2024 7:11:23 AM PDT by Red Badger
Jade Simon, a professor at Laramie County Community College, was a critical part of a paleontologist team that discovered a new species of meat-eating dinosaur that’s best described as a giant 170-pound chicken from hell.
A new prehistoric avian dinosaur, similar to this one, has been discovered. A Wyoming paleontologist helped verify it. (Cowboy State Daily Illustration)
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When paleontologists found a drumstick from what can best be described as a 68-million-year-old chicken from hell, they needed expert on prehistoric hell chickens to confirm it as a new species. And they found her in Wyoming at Laramie County Community College.
A recently published scientific paper announced a new species of dinosaur from the Hell Creek Formation of South Dakota.
Eoneophron infernalis, described in the paper as “the Pharoah’s dawn chicken from hell,” is a kind of two-legged theropod called a caenagnathid, which is distantly related to the famous T. rex and velociraptor (and chickens, by proxy).
Unlike modern chickens, these could grow to be about 170 pounds.
Jade Simon, an adjunct geology instructor at LCCC’s Albany County Campus, is one of the paper's authors. Her specialty is the lineage of Late Cretaceous hell chickens.
“They brought me on to help compare with the other caenagnathids that I study because I do a lot of this,” she told Cowboy State Daily. "We looked over all the specimens, compared my data from other specimens I had or was studying and figured out together that it was a new species.”
Egg Thieves And Hell Chickens Simon is a vertebrate paleontologist with degrees from West Virginia University and Montana State University. While she teaches geology at LCCC, she’s also working on her Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology from the University of Toronto.
She explained that a caenagnathid is a kind of oviraptor, aka “egg thief,” a group of dinosaurs that combine the body of a nimbly built meat-eating dinosaur with a parrot-like beak at the end of a long, narrow neck. They technically were less like chickens and more like even more murderous and monstrous geese.
“Oviraptors are a group that's really close to the bird lineage,” she said. “They're very bird-like, with a beak instead of a long jaw with teeth and feathers over their whole body. They're really interesting animals. I study the growth and diversity of that group.”
Caenagnathids are a family of large oviraptors. The largest one found (so far) is gigantoraptor from Mongolia, which is 26 feet long and weighs around 2 tons.
Compared to their Cretaceous contemporaries like T. Rex and Triceratops, which lived at the same time and place, caenagnathids are very rare in the Hell Creek and Lance formations of North America. Most are only known from fragmentary skeletons.
Another caenagnathid, Anzu, has been found in the Hell Creek Formation. A fully grown Anzu could grow as much as 12 feet long and almost 5 feet tall — a truly tremendous hell chicken.
Simon Says So Simon’s dissertation involved studying bones from dozens of caenagnathids from the United States and Canada. That’s why she was enlisted to assist in the study of the new fossil, a partial leg, in the collections of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
“At first, Kyle Atkins-Weltman, the lead author of the study, and his advisor, Dr. Eric Snively, thought it might be a juvenile,” she said. “But when we looked at the bone histology, cut it up and put it under a microscope, we figured out that it was actually mature already. It's fully grown.”
The drumstick the paleontologists studied came from a fully grown animal that was only 3 feet tall. Since it was too small and old to be from a juvenile Anzu, they realized it must have come from a new type of caenagnathid.
Establishing a new dinosaur species takes a lot of research, and proof as solid as the rocks preserving the fossils. Simon also highlighted some “unique anatomical features” in the leg and ankle, suggesting that the bone belonged to its own dinosaur and not a smaller version of its larger relative, Anzu.
Put it all together, and the paleontologists concluded that their drumstick was a new item on the Hell Creek Formation’s menu. Thus, Eoneophron was named.
Not Chickening Out Simon said the discovery of Eoneophron is an exciting addition to an ongoing debate. Their research has found a new species of dinosaur living at a time when most paleontologists believe dinosaur diversity was declining.
The Hell Creek Formation preserves the last days of the dinosaurs before the Cretaceous-Paleogene Extinction, when an extraterrestrial object, either a comet or meteor, slammed into Earth 66 million years ago. That impact heralded the end of the dinosaurs' 160-million-year reign.
For decades, paleontologists believed dinosaurs were already on the decline for millions of years before the impact. Simon said the discovery of Eoneophron suggests that the decline might not have been so dramatic, if it was happening at all.
“For a long time, paleontologists have thought that it's possible that dinosaurs were declining,” she said. “They were less diverse, and there were fewer of them before the asteroid impact, so maybe they were on their way out already. A lot of recent information, including this study, is showing the opposite. It looks like a lot of different groups were diversifying.”
Wyoming could be an essential player in this ongoing debate. Ongoing excavations for the Triceratops Gulch Project in Glenrock suggest more dinosaur diversity at the end of the Cretaceous Period than previously believed.
“Dinosaurs were doing great,” Simon said. “They weren't really declining. They were actually diversifying before the asteroid.”
A Paleontologist’s Dream Simon is still working on her doctorate dissertation on caenagnathids. But now, she gets to include a new species she helped discover.
Once she gets her Ph.D. in paleontology, she’s unsure where her research will take her. However, she’s hopeful that it’ll keep her in Wyoming.
“I would love to stay in Wyoming,” she said. “The state has an incredible and unique fossil record. You can find everything from so many different stages of Earth's history. Some of the first evidence of life on our planet, up through dinosaurs and into the Eocene, which is pretty phenomenal.”
In the meantime, Simon still has more hell chicken mysteries to sort out. She hopes future excavations in the Lance Formation in eastern Wyoming will reveal more caenagnathid fossils, including Eoneophron.
No Eonenophron fossils have been confirmed from Wyoming, but the hell chicken would have had a home in the Cowboy State 68 million years ago. Fossils and footprints from its larger contemporary Anzu have been found in Newcastle, Glenrock and elsewhere in eastern Wyoming.
Having more than one South Dakota drumstick from a species she helped discover would be great, but Simon’s not too particular. As long as she’s finding fossils in Wyoming, she can keep dreaming about hell chickens while living in a prehistoric heaven.
“You’ve got it all in Wyoming,” she said. “It's kind of a paleontologist's dream to be here.”
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
Uhhhhhh.............Chicken?...............................🤦♂️
"This means something! This is important!"
No keel bone, not much breast meat...
It didn’t fly..................
Just because it didn’t fly doesn’t mean I don’t want a giant breast!
Ummmm...
nvrmnd
I don’t particularly like breast meat, chicken or turkey. Usually too dry or tough and chewy.
I like dark meat, it has more flavor...............
...Juicier and more flavor...
... It’s April 1 y’all ...
This was dated yesterday!..........................
Love that. Been up to the Maine Maritime Museum a few times, always found that representation of the outline of that huge coaling ship to be a fascinating link to the past!
Speaking of Bath Iron Works, I had a funny experience with the USS Michael Murphy when she was being built up in the Bath Iron Works in Maine.
My wife and I took a tour, but since 9/11, they don’t allow the usual tours where you would walk from building to building or that kind of thing. Now, you have to give ID about a week in advance, they do a check on you, and when you take the tour, they put you on a bus and drive you around. You don’t get off.
Oh well, I guess it is better than nothing.
Anyway, as we came around the side of one building, the USS Michael Murphy came into view, and she had already been launched and was in the water, but I presume, not yet commissioned as they were still finishing work on her while she was tied up.
I eyed her with some interest, there were a lot of Navy and civilian personnel aboard her, and I saw that there were armed guards in cammo (that silly blue-tinted kind) standing watch with M-16s slung over their shoulders. There were two tall, muscular athletic looking young men standing watch, and as we got closer, I saw them facing each other maybe two feet apart, doing something with their hands.
Nobody else on the bus saw them since they were likely looking at the vessel, but I saw them, and there was something vaguely familiar about their interaction with each other that rang a bell in my memory somewhere...what WERE they doing?
Then in hit me.
They were playing Rock-Paper-Scissors! A loud strangled laugh choked out of of me when I realized it, and a bunch of people turned suddenly and looked at me inquiringly, I had to apologize and I pointed and said “Look! Those watch standers are playing Rock-Paper-Scissors!”
Then they all looked, and began grinning and twittering.
At that point, a Chief in khakis came storming out and gave them a stern chewing out, which was easy to see from their body language, the stooped shoulders and bowed heads, while the jaw of the Chief worked furiously.
Then they parted and went to stand in different areas.
Now, I know these are military personnel with a job to do, and and they should have been doing it. But I suspect, as has happened with military personnel dating back to early Rome, long hours of boredom (probably looking for white supremacists, racists, or conservatives to approach in an explosive laden boat that would never appear) drove them to chat, and eventually revert to the big kids they appeared to be (as all young sailors really are inside) and begin playing a kid’s game.
Heh, the Chief likely saw the bus come around full of tourists, and then saw them clowning around with each other.
Yes, but my wife always buys breasts on sale and freezes them........................
Chicken thighs are the best.
Ostrich Kills Man On Farm In Winlock
It adds paranthetically; "Carter said she has been raising ostriches for more than two years and they have been profitable. Ostrich meat sells for $9 a pound."
Probably better to stick to quail and chickens.
Yes, I love them, but my wife buys only breasts.
Says it’s more healthy.......................
Can’t get milk from a thigh.
Can’t roller skate in a buffalo herd, either...................😉
Finger lickin’ good.
No, No, NO!
The giant chicken isn’t from hell, it’s from a Dobie Gillis rerun!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAMMvwGZzZ8
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