New Dinosaur Species Found in India

BOMBAY, India - U.S. and Indian scientists said Wednesday they have discovered a new carnivorous dinosaur species in India after finding bones in the western part of the country.

The new dinosaur species was named Rajasaurus narmadensis, or "Regal reptile from the Narmada," after the Narmada River region where the bones were found.

The dinosaurs were between 25-30 feet long, had a horn above their skulls, were relatively heavy and walked on two legs, scientists said. They preyed on long-necked herbivorous dinosaurs on the Indian subcontinent during the Cretaceous Period at the end of the dinosaur age, 65 million years ago.

"It's fabulous to be able to see this dinosaur which lived as the age of dinosaurs came to a close," said Paul Sereno, a paleontologist at the University of Chicago. "It was a significant predator that was related to species on continental Africa, Madagascar and South America."

Working with Indian scientists, Sereno and paleontologist Jeff Wilson of the University of Michigan reconstructed the dinosaur skull in a project funded partly by the National Geographic (news - web sites) Society.

A model of the assembled skull was presented Wednesday by the American scientists to their counterparts from Punjab University in northern India and the Geological Survey of India during a Bombay news conference.

Scientists said they hope the discovery will help explain the extinction of the dinosaurs and the shifting of the continents — how India separated from Africa, Madagascar, Australia and Antarctica and collided with Asia.

The dinosaur bones were discovered during the past 18 years by Indian scientists Suresh Srivastava of the Geological Survey of India and Ashok Sahni, a paleontologist at Punjab University.

When the bones were examined, "we realized we had a partial skeleton of an undiscovered species," Sereno said.

The scientists said they believe the Rajasaurus roamed the Southern Hemisphere land masses of present-day Madagascar, Africa and South America.

"People don't realize dinosaurs are the only large-bodied animal that lived, evolved and died at a time when all continents were united," Sereno said.

The cause of the dinosaurs' extinction is still debated by scientists. The Rajasaurus discovery may provide crucial clues, Sereno said.

In 1997, villagers discovered about 300 fossilized dinosaur eggs in Pisdura, 440 miles northeast of Bombay, that Indian scientists said were laid by four-legged, long-necked vegetarian creatures.

Indian scientists said the dinosaur embryos in the eggs may have suffocated during volcanic eruptions.

Incidentally, Many scientists are beginning to back off of the bird theory.

And most have not. Furthermore, recent discoveries have filled in even more of the "missing links" in the dinosaur-to-bird transition. More information. Another excellent site. Here's an amusing excerpt from that last link:

And really, the Birds-Are-Not-Dinosaurs (BAND) group seriously are a constant source of amusement to me. As soon as one theory on why birds cannot be dinosaurs is demolished by a new discovery, the BAND crowd come up with a new theory that is even less plausible than their previous one. Over the past few years, these folks have adopted more positions than the Kama Sutra.

Archaeopteryx [...] was not a dinosaur. It was a bird.

It's always funny listening to creationists try to explain Archaeopteryx. The reason it's so funny is that half of them declare it to be "obviously" just a bird -- and the other half declare it to be "obviously" just a reptile.

So it's a bird, eh? Well that explains the wings and feathers and so on. But how then do you explain these clearly reptilian features?

Premaxilla and maxilla are not horn-covered. This is posh talk for "does not have a bill."
Trunk region vertebra are free. In birds the trunk vertebrae are always fused.
Pubic shafts with a plate-like, and slightly angled transverse cross-section. A Character shared with dromaeosaurs but not with other dinosaurs or birds.
Cerebral hemispheres elongate, slender and cerebellum is situated behind the mid-brain and doesn't overlap it from behind or press down on it. This again is a reptilian feature. In birds the cerebral hemispheres are stout, cerebellum is so much enlarged that it spreads forwards over the mid-brain and compresses it downwards.
Neck attaches to skull from the rear as in dinosaurs not from below as in modern birds. The site of neck attachement (from below) is characteristic in birds, _Archaeopteryx_ does not have this character, but is the same as theropod dinosaurs.
Center of cervical vertebrae have simple concave articular facets. This is the same as the archosaur pattern. In birds the vertebrae are different, they have a saddle-shaped surface: "The most striking feature of the vertebrae is the simple disk-like facets of their centra, without any sign of the saddle-shaped articulations found in other birds" (de Beer 1954, p. 17).
Long bony tail with many free vertebrae up to tip (no pygostyle). Birds have a short tail and the caudal vertebrae are fused to give the pygostyle.
Premaxilla and maxilla bones bear teeth. No modern bird possess teeth.
Ribs slender, without joints or uncinate processes and do not articulate with the sternum. Birds have stout ribs with uncinate processes (braces between them) and articulate with the sternum.
Pelvic girdle and femur joint is archosaurian rather than avian (except for the backward pointing pubis as mentioned above).
The Sacrum (the vertebrae developed for the attachment of pelvic girdle) occupies 6 vertebra. This is the same as in reptiles and especially ornithipod dinosaurs. The bird sacrum covers between 11-23 vertebrae!
Metacarpals (hand) free (except 3rd metacarpal), wrist hand joint flexible. This is as in reptiles. In birds the metacarpals are fused together with the distal carpals in the carpo-metacarpus, wrist /hand fused.
Nasal opening far forward, separated from the eye by a large preorbital fenestra (hole). This is typical of reptiles, but not of birds.
Deltoid ridge of the humerus faces anteriorly as do the radial and ulnar condyles. Typical of reptiles but not found in birds.
Claws on 3 unfused digits. No modern adult bird has 3 claws, nor do they have unfused digits.
The fibula is equal in length to the tibia in the leg. This again is a typical character of reptiles. In birds the fibula is shortened and reduced. [When you eat a chicken drumstick, the fibula is the toothpick-like sliver of bone you find lying alongside the large "legbone", which is the tibia. Ich.]
Metatarsals (foot bones) free. In birds these are fused to form the tarsometatarsus.
Gastralia present. Gastralia are "ventral ribs," elements of dermal bone in the ventral wall of the abdomen. Typical of reptiles, they are absent in birds

[The above condensed from All About Archaeopteryx by Chris Nedin, which has far more information and quotes from primary research.

Are you sure you know what you're talking about?

I have to warn you, if you've gotten your "information" from creationist sources, you've likely been woefully misinformed and underinformed.

(unlike Archaeoraptor which was a known hoax)

That's overstating the case. It's more accurate to say it was a fraud. And not by those evil(tm) evolutionists, either, as creationists like to imply. More than anything else, it was a comedy of errors.

The Chinese farmer who found the original specimen knew that it would sell for more money to fossil collectors if it was more complete, so he shaped and glued plausible (to him) pieces he had found nearby onto a broken specimen. He was just trying to make a buck, not hoax anyone into any particular scientific conclusion.

It was eventually bought by a husband-wife team of semi-professional fossil collectors (dubbed "hobbyists" in some accounts), who decided they had something interesting and brought it to the attention of National Geographic magazine, hoping for fame and fortune. If it turned out to be significant, it could be their Big Break in the fossil community.

National Geographic normally doesn't publish new discoveries without first having them peer-reviewed in advance by scientists (even though, note, National Geographic is not itself a "scientific" publication). For various reasons they neglected to do so this time, and the result was egg on their faces.

Through a number of communication failures, red flags raised by several members of the team examining the specimen were not communicated to the right people (some of which were out in the field working on other projects), and eventually National Geographic went to press with an announcment of a new "discovery" that turned out to have been incorrectly assembled like a jigsaw puzzle. (Note: The fact that the specimen was glued together in several places was not itself a tip-off, since specimens are often broken into several pieces naturally prior to being discovered, or broken during recovery, and then glued together to retain their form.)

It was only a matter of weeks before the attention created by the publication resulted in a flood of scientists pointing out the obviously inauthentic nature of the specimen, and National Geographic published an embarrassed retraction and post-mortem analysis of how they had managed to screw up.

Significantly, the two *science* journals to which the fossil owners had submitted papers on the specimen (prior to the National Geographic publication) had rejected them. The journal Nature rejected it because National Geographic would not give them enough time to properly peer review the matter before NG's publication, and they would not print it without peer review (good for them, this is why peer-review is a critical scientific "reality check").

The paper was then submitted to the journal Science, which rejected it, saying they required more proof of Archaeoraptor's birdlike qualities. The paper was rewritten and resubmitted, and again rejected as inadequate.

So contrary to creationist claims about this debacle, 1) the fraud was perpetrated by a Chinese farmer out to make a buck, not an agenda-driven scientist, 2) the mass-market magazine National Geographic was responsible for the premature announcement of its alleged "missing link" status, not the science community nor science journals, 3) actual science journals rejected it, and 4) scientists were the first to identify it as a fraud as soon as they got a look at it.

Rather than being a story of science's alleged frauds or errors, it's actually a story of how self-correcting science is.

And most have not. Furthermore, recent discoveries have filled in even more of the "missing links" in the dinosaur-to-bird transition. More information. Another excellent site.

First, your assumption that "Most have not" is an assertion. It is not proven. It is your assertion. Only 55% of Scientists reportedly believe in Darwinian evolution. But even if all of the scientists believed that dinosaurs became birds, what would that prove? A couple of hundred years, most scientists "Believed" in bloodletting. Many many years ago most scientists believed the earth was flat (incidentally, the Bible has always claimed the earth was round). A hundred years ago, the universe was only 2 Billion years old and now it is 4.6 billion (better act quick, this place is gettin' old QUICK!). What Scientists take on faith is not proof of anything. There are some MAJOR problems with the dino-to-bird theory, but rather than admit them, dogmatists insist that dinosaurs "obviously" became birds, we just have to prove how. They start with an assumption that they are taking on faith, but have observed squat. Repeatable observation is usually what defines true science. Your scientists have a theory and nothing more.

Here's an amusing excerpt from that last link:

And really, the Birds-Are-Not-Dinosaurs (BAND) group seriously are a constant source of amusement to me.

Glad he finds us so amusing. Of course, the notion that a complex human being that came from a non-personal rock is pretty rip roaring hilarious too, don'tcha admit???

As soon as one theory on why birds cannot be dinosaurs is demolished by a new discovery, the BAND crowd come up with a new theory that is even less plausible than their previous one. Over the past few years, these folks have adopted more positions than the Kama Sutra.

And Darwinists haven't???? Give me a break here!!!! This dog isn't going to hunt. Anyone who has studied any of evolution at all know that the vast majority of Darwinian scientists don't even agree amongst themselves and are CONSTANTLY coming out with new theories of how the earth evolved. These theories range anywhere from the traditional big-bang primordial soup gig to panspermia (which is a position held by DNA co-founder Francis Crick stating that the world shows intelligent design, but OBVIOUSLY we can't admit God could have done all this, so the aliens came here millions and millions of years ago and planted seeds- boy that's science!).

Archaeopteryx [...] was not a dinosaur. It was a bird.
It's always funny listening to creationists try to explain Archaeopteryx. The reason it's so funny is that half of them declare it to be "obviously" just a bird -- and the other half declare it to be "obviously" just a reptile.
Smoke-screen, and a blatantly arrogant one at that. I have stated that it is a bird. Some of your other "dino-birds" that have been postulated to be transitional species ARE, in fact, just reptiles. (see Sinosauropteryx) Appealing to what other people have or have not said (most creationists I have heard of say it is a bird) does not address the issue at point. One thing is for sure, it is not a bird-a-tile.

So it's a bird, eh? Well that explains the wings and feathers and so on.
And so on... Why not spell out the "and so on" Things like lung design that is that of a bird and not of a reptile. Jaw design (bird). It's wishbone (bird). Foot design (bird). Etc.,

But how then do you explain these clearly reptilian features?
Mammals and reptiles share many common features. Does not prove we came from one another, just that we had the same designer. How do you explain the fish on Free Republic (rat-faced something or 'nother) that had a horn growing out of its head? Most fish don't have these, but it doesn't mean that it is a reptile.

Premaxilla and maxilla are not horn-covered. This is posh talk for "does not have a bill."
And a dinosaur's maxilla does not move. Birds do.

Trunk region vertebra are free. In birds the trunk vertebrae are always fused.
Paleontologists classify Archaeopteryx as a bird. It may be different from most birds
Pubic shafts with a plate-like, and slightly angled transverse cross-section. A Character shared with dromaeosaurs but not with other dinosaurs or birds.
Which proves nothing, other than this bird is different from most other birds as dromaeosaurs are different from other dinosaurs.

Many of the features you named within this section are comparing this saur from that saur and saying well, Archaeopteryx really looks more like the saurs than like birds. But examine that. The fact that this saur has this feature and that saur has that feature shows that there are frequently things within each classification that may be unique to a particular species. For example, plesiosaurs don't have wings like pterodactyls. Some dinosaurs don't have long necks, some eat vegetables and some eat meat. Doesn't prove anything other than God's creation is diverse. Just because something LOOKs like something else, does not mean it evolved from something else.

Long bony tail with many free vertebrae up to tip (no pygostyle). Birds have a short tail and the caudal vertebrae are fused to give the pygostyle.
"In the embryonic stage, some living birds have more tail vertebrae than Archaeopteryx. They later fuse to become an upstanding bone called the pygostyle. The tail bone and feather arrangement on swans is very similar to those of Archaeopteryx. One authority claims that there is no basic difference between the ancient and modern forms: the difference lies only in the fact that the caudal vertebrae are greatly prolonged. But this does not make a reptile." "

Premaxilla and maxilla bones bear teeth. No modern bird possess teeth.
Several early birds did have teeth. So is Archy a modern or an early bird???

The Sacrum (the vertebrae developed for the attachment of pelvic girdle) occupies 6 vertebra. This is the same as in reptiles and especially ornithipod dinosaurs. The bird sacrum covers between 11-23 vertebrae!

See above.

Metacarpals (hand) free (except 3rd metacarpal), wrist hand joint flexible. This is as in reptiles. In birds the metacarpals are fused together with the distal carpals in the carpo-metacarpus, wrist /hand fused.
Yes, and most mammals have free moving joints in their wrists. Moles don't. Does that mean a mole is not a mammal? Most birds may have fused carpo-metacarpus. This one doesn't. So???

Claws on 3 unfused digits. No modern adult bird has 3 claws, nor do they have unfused digits.
This is incorrect. There are at least 3 modern birds with claws on their wings.

Are you sure you know what you're talking about?
Are you?

I have to warn you, if you've gotten your "information" from creationist sources, you've likely been woefully misinformed and underinformed.

Herein lies your problem. You are throwing out evidence simply because you know that the source does not agree with your theory. You make an unsubstatiated assertion, appealing to only the authority of your own opinion on such sources, but I would hasten to say that I doubt you've really studied these creationist sources in much detail at all. Your pro-evolution bias is merely religion in another form. If you choose to believe these things, fine. But you show your hand when you refuse to consider what any source has to say because "it's creationist."

Evolution is a failed theory. It has contributed SQUAT to the scientific effort. When it doesn't work and is proven not to work, rather than consider other options, the evolutionist stubbornly clings to the theory and postulates things such as punctuated equilibrium to explain what he can't explain. The bias is so strong that it is simply UNTHINKABLE to admit everything shows design, and if there is design there is a designer, and that designer just might be a God to whom we are ALL accountable. We can NEVER admit that. I don't find evolutionists "amusing". I find them pathetically sad. I also find them angering because they willfully distort the record in text books to get kids to believe the lie of evolution while suppressing anything that even sounds like creation. This is not science. It is indoctrination of a religious dogma.

(unlike Archaeoraptor which was a known hoax)
That's overstating the case. It's more accurate to say it was a fraud. And not by those evil(tm) evolutionists, either, as creationists like to imply. More than anything else, it was a comedy of errors.

You just can't admit a wrong can you? Archaeoraptor WAS a known hoax. It wasn't perpetrated by a creationist, or believed by creationists either. Rather, it was believed by evolutionists and tauted as a possible "missing link". It became known to be a hoax and was a real embarassment to the evolution community. No "comedy of errors" It was a deliberate hoax and the evolutionist religionists were willing to bite.

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