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Wow! Just how *slow* was the Tyrannosaurus Rex?!? ;') |
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Posted on 12/02/2007 9:54:16 PM PST by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - One of the most complete dinosaur mummies ever found is revealing secrets locked away for millions of years, bringing researchers as close as they will ever get to touching a live dino.
The fossilized duckbilled hadrosaur is so well preserved that scientists have been able to calculate its muscle mass and learn that it was more muscular than thought, probably giving it the ability to outrun predators such as T. rex.
While they call it a mummy, the dinosaur is not really preserved like King Tut was. The dinosaur body has been fossilized into stone. Unlike the collections of bones found in museums, this hadrosaur came complete with skin, ligaments, tendons and possibly some internal organs, according to researchers.
The study is not yet complete, but scientists have concluded that hadrosaurs were bigger — 3 1/2 tons and up to 40 feet long — and stronger than had been known, were quick and flexible and had skin with scales that may have been striped.
"Oh, the skin is wonderful," paleontologist Phillip Manning of Manchester University in England rhapsodized, admitting to a "glazed look in my eye."
"It's unbelievable when you look at it for the first time," he said in a telephone interview. "There is depth and structure to the skin. The level of detail expressed in the skin is just breathtaking."
Manning said there is a pattern of banding to the larger and smaller scales on the skin. Because it has been fossilized researchers do not know the skin color. Looking at it in monochrome shows a striped pattern.
He notes that in modern reptiles, such a pattern is often associated with color change.
The fossil was found in 1999 in North Dakota and now is nicknamed "Dakota." It is being analyzed in the world's largest CT scanner, operated by the Boeing Co. The machine usually is used for space shuttle engines and other large objects. Researchers hope the technology will help them learn more about the fossilized insides of the creature.
"It's a definite case of watch this space," Manning said. "We are trying to be very conservative, very careful."
But they have learned enough so far to produce two books and a television program. The TV special, "Dino Autopsy," will air on the National Geographic channel Dec. 9. National Geographic Society partly funded the research.
A children's book, "DinoMummy: The Life, Death, and Discovery of Dakota, a Dinosaur From Hell Creek," goes on sale Tuesday and an adult book, "Grave Secrets of Dinosaurs: Soft Tissues and Hard Science," will be available in January.
Soft parts of dead animals normally decompose rapidly after death. Because of chemical conditions where this animal died, fossilization — replacement of tissues by minerals — took place faster than the decomposition, leaving mineralized portions of the tissue.
That does not mean DNA, the building blocks of life, can be recovered, Manning said. Some has been recovered from frozen mammoths up to 1 million years old, he said. At the age of this dinosaur, 65 million to 67 million years old, "the chance of finding DNA is remote," he said.
A Manchester colleague, Roy Wogelius, who also worked on the dinosaur, said "one thing that we are very confident of is that we do have some organic molecular breakdown products present." That look at chemicals associated with the animal is still research in progress.
Matthew Carrano, a paleontologist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, said he could not comment in detail about the find because he had not seen the research. But, he added, "Any time we can get a glimpse of the soft anatomy of a dinosaur, that's significant."
The findings from Dakota may cause museums to rethink their dinosaur displays.
Most dinosaur skeletons in museums, for example, show the vertebrae right next to one another. The researchers looking at Dakota found a gap of about a centimeter — about 0.4 inch — between each one.
That indicates there may have been a disk or other material between them, allowing more flexibility and meaning the animal was actually longer than what is shown in a museum. On large animals, adding the space could make them a yard longer or more, Manning said.
Because ligaments and tendons were preserved, as well as other parts of Dakota, researchers could to calculate its muscle mass, showing it was stronger and potentially faster than had been known.
They estimated the hadrosaur's top speed at about 28 miles per hour, 10 mph faster than the giant T. Rex is thought to have been able to run.
"It's very logical, though, that a hadrosaur could run faster than a T. rex. It's a major prey animal and it doesn't have big horns on its head like triceratops. Hadrosaurs didn't have much in the way of defense systems, so they probably relied on fleet of foot," Manning said.
Dakota was discovered by Tyler Lyson, then a teenager who liked hunting for fossils on his family ranch. Lyson, who is currently working on his doctorate degree in paleontology at Yale University, founded the Marmarth Research Foundation, an organization dedicated to the excavation, preservation and study of dinosaurs.
I didn’t have to. :’) Thanks for the link.
If the image shown above is accurate, the creature could not have weighed 35 tons. The 3 1/2 ton figure is probably the correct one.
more on hadrosaur:
Antarctic Lost Worlds - 2 New Dinosaurs Species Found
Astrobiology Magazine | 2/27/04 | astrobiology
Posted on 02/27/2004 12:36:42 PM EST by Mark Felton
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1086739/posts
Some Dinos May’ve Survived the Cataclysm
Discover Magazine online | 8-29-07 | Barry E. DiGregorio
Posted on 09/06/2007 1:39:05 PM EDT by Renfield
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1892086/posts
a bit of good info about hadrosaurs:
Paleocene dinosaurs and the reinforcement syndrome (Creation vs. Evolution)
Answers in Genesis | Michael J. Oard
Posted on 11/24/2005 11:36:05 PM EST by DaveLoneRanger
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1528195/posts
a little bit related:
Ichthyosaur bones found off U.K. coast
New Kerala | 15 Oct 2005
Posted on 10/17/2005 5:52:36 PM EDT by nickcarraway
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1504162/posts
not too related:
Funny-Looking Dinosaur Found in China
Live Science | October 04, 2007 | Robin Lloyd
Posted on 10/04/2007 7:32:47 PM EDT by decimon
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1906729/posts
PRESERVED T. Rex Soft Tissue RECOVERED (Pic)
Star Tribune | 03.24.05 | Randolph Schmid
Posted on 03/24/2005 3:04:54 PM EST by wallcrawlr
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1369945/posts
Scientists see the softer side of Tyrannosaurus Rex
[Surviving soft tissue w/ pics]
Science Now | 10/1/2006 | staff
Posted on 10/01/2006 11:12:10 AM EDT by Excuse_My_Bellicosity
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1711619/posts
Ancient T. rex and mastodon protein fragments discovered, sequenced
National Science Foundation | 12-Apr-2007 | Cheryl Dybas
Posted on 04/12/2007 3:43:57 PM EDT by AdmSmith
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1816333/posts
- cre/vo “great divide” -
Dinosaur Shocker
(YEC say dinosaur soft tissue couldn’t possibly survive millions of years)
Smithsonian Magazine | May 1, 2006 | Helen Fields
Posted on 05/01/2006 11:29:14 AM EDT by SirLinksalot
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/1624642/posts
The scrambling continues (Fallout over T-rex bone tissue continues)
Answers in Genesis | March 6, 2006 | Staff
Posted on 03/10/2006 9:25:07 AM EST by DaveLoneRanger
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1593799/posts
Dino Skin Preserved in Rare Fossil Find
Discovery News | November 21, 2006 | Jennifer Viegas
Posted on 11/23/2006 12:43:21 AM EST by DaveLoneRanger
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1742984/posts
Re: 3 1/2 ton...
The article says Hadrasaurs ranged from 40 to 45 feet in length.
A modern 13 foot long African elephant can weigh in at 13,000 pounds (6 1/2 tons) and a few have been recorded at over 24,000 (12 tons). That’s about 1000 lbs per foot of length.
The hadrasaur, fully grown, is taller than the eliphant at the shoulder, so if we figure 1200 pounds per foot for the beastie in discussion, we’re looking at 24 to 27 tons, ignoring the square-cube law.
If we include the square-cube law, 35 tons may not be out of the question for a large specimen.
Wow, that is pretty amazing.
Finally, the missing link in the evolution of the duck-billed platypus has been found.
Hadrosaurus was a 5-ton (4.5-metric-ton), late Cretaceous animal and was the first dinosaur to be discovered and named in North America-in 1858 from fossils found in New Jersey. Corythosaurus was a 36 ft-long (11 m-long), 4 ton (3.6 metric ton), Late Cretaceous herbivore that had a large, hollow, helmet-like crest on the top of its head. Parasaurolophus of the late Cretaceous was similar in size, but it had a curved, hollow crest that swept back as far as 10 ft (3 m) from the back of the head. It has been suggested that this exaggerated helmet may have worked like a snorkel when this animal was feeding underwater on aquatic plants; however, more likely uses of the sweptback helmet were in species recognition and resonating the loud sounds made by these hadrosaurs. Edmontosaurus was a large, non-helmeted hadrosaur that lived in the Great Plains during the late Cretaceous and was as long as 40 ft (13 m) and weighed 3 tons (2.7 metric tons). Anatosaurus was a 3 ton (2.7 metric-ton) hadrosaur that lived as recently as 66 million years ago and was among the last of the dinosaurs to become extinct. The hadrosaurs probably were a favorite prey for some of the large theropods, such as Tyrannosaurus rex.
The 3.5 ton figure is much closer to the range of published Hadrosaur values.
I think the reporter just didn't see the decimal point or someone had a typo somewhere down the line.
How is it that an animal that is arguably twice the size of a modern male African elephant weighs the same as an average female African elephant?
Something is wrong here. I grant that the tail and head taper toward the extremities, but the main body mass, although much larger, appears in the National Geographic pictures to be proportionate to the elephant's.
According to the square-cube law if the size of an animal is increased, the skin area will be increased by a factor of the square of the size multiplier and the volume will be increased by a factor of the cube of the size multiplier.
If we start with a young hadrosaur, at the same size as a modern elephant, 6,000 lbs, and it doubles proportionately in size, the volume (and equivalent probably the mass) would be eight times (23 larger! That's 8 X ~6,000 lbs = ~48,000 lbs.
Or are the saying an animal with that massive neck and equally massive tail has a really skinny body or is completely hollow inside?
No. I've been trying to get the sequel to March of the Penguins -- April of the Penguins -- No luck so far...
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Wow! Just how *slow* was the Tyrannosaurus Rex?!? ;') |
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