Posted on 06/02/2005 2:06:01 PM PDT by dread78645
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Tyrannosaurus rex dinosaur that died 68 million years ago has provided some of the strongest evidence yet that birds are the closest-living relatives of dinosaurs, scientists said on Thursday.
Soft tissue found in the animal's thighbone strongly suggests it was a female, and just about to lay eggs, the researchers report.
The bone tissue is strongly similar to that made inside the bones of female birds -- and no other living type of animal -- when they are producing the hard shells of eggs just before they lay them, said Mary Higby Schweitzer of North Carolina State University in Raleigh.
"In addition to demonstrating gender, it also links the reproductive physiology of dinosaurs to birds very closely. It indicates that dinosaurs produced and shelled their eggs much more like modern birds than like modern crocodiles," Schweitzer told reporters in a telephone briefing.
Female birds produce a layer of bone tissue called medullary bone when they are laying eggs. It is rich in calcium, providing minerals that would otherwise be leached from harder bone material, leaving the bird susceptible to fractures.
"The way that crocodiles lay and shell their eggs is they hold them in their reproductive tract and shell them all at once," Schweitzer said.
"Birds shell their eggs one at a time as they move down through the reproductive tract. It is a pretty calcium-intensive process."
ALREADY A STAR
This particular T. rex fossil made headlines in March when the same team of paleontologists reported it contained preserved soft tissue -- the first ever found in a dinosaur bone.
"The reason that we have found all the things in this one particular animal is this specimen was in a very remote part of Montana, in the Hell Creek formation," said Jack Horner of the Museum of the Rockies and Montana State University.
"It was so far out in the country that we needed to helicopter it out and we actually had to split the thighbone into two pieces to get it into the helicopter."
When Schweitzer unwrapped the cracked-open femur she immediately saw the soft tissue and went to work proving its remarkable state of preservation.
Horner plans to crack open some other bones.
"We have 12 specimens of Tyrannosaurus rex here at this institution, and we are about to find out if any more of them are females, just by looking inside," he said.
It was a stroke of luck to find an animal at just the right stage to be making medullary bone, Schweitzer said.
"It would not be present in a brooding animal," she said.
"But it would be present as long as there was an egg left to lay. The animal was probably near the end of its laying cycle."
Finding another such specimen will be difficult.
"I think it is pretty much a long shot," she said.
In April, Tamaki Sato of the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, and colleagues reported they had found the fossil of a dinosaur in China that carried two eggs in its body.
Its physiology also was closer to modern birds than to modern crocodiles, Sato reported.
Horner said most experts are convinced the two-legged dinosaurs known as theropods were closely related to living birds.
"This is another piece to the puzzle and there are a lot of them," he said. "Anyone who would argue that birds and dinosaurs are not related -- frankly I'd put them in the Flat Earth Society group."
That's kind of a dodge. Something as massive and world-shattering as a global flood is not likely to be told of in metaphor.
well, actually, the Genesis Flood wouldn't be in the Egyptian records at all... there'd be records right up to that date, and then a hieroglyph meaning "a sodden gurgle", and then nothing. ever. after.
as this is contrary to fact...
Most cultures speak about a big boat filled with animals? I doubt it. To pick a big one, Classical Greek and Roman mythology doesn't mention a world flood. The Norse and their relatives don't have any such story, either.
Concerning Egyptian records, how many kings and cities have been swept away by the desert sands?
We have pretty good written records from the Egyptians going back well past when the flood supposedly happened. There is no break in the Egyptian chronology.
Your asking me to disprove a negative. (i.e. Why is something not there?) I'm not taking the bait.
I can get the same result by asking you to explain why those records still exist. Egyptian writings go back to about 4500 BC. Papyrus was invented around 3000 BC. Papyrus doesn't respond well to water, and yet we have many, many Papyrus writings from before the date that the flood was supposed to have happened. Can you explain their survival?
Most likely, the Biblical flood story comes from around 2200 BC, when Sumerian priests invented mythic science fiction, and wrote a story about the flooding of the earth involving many gods and a pious king Ziusdra. Around 1800 BC, the Bablyonians adapt and expand the flood story in their Epic of Gilgamesh involving the pious king Atrahasis. Around 500 BCE, Hebrew priests in Babylonia take the regionally popular flood story, reduce the gods to one, and demote the king to a commoner named Noah.
There shouldn't be any records from before the flood, anyway. At least, not ones on papyrus (40 days of submersion in water is not good for Papyrus). And yet, there are.
IIRC, it would have been more than 40 days of immersion. the rains supposedly lasted for forty days, but the drowning of the world supposedly dragged on for months and months... dang, where is my KJV?
grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrowf.
anyway, your point is well made. whether the True Believers take it is another matter.
Nice conclusion. I dont believe it but at least you posted what you believe. I appreciate the discussion.
The recovery of "soft" tissue after millions and millions of years favors the Creationist argument more than anything else...This guy quoted belongs in the "Flat Earth Society"...
Creationists will of course try to claim the chronology is wrong. It can't be wrong enough. Predynastic culture blends rather smoothly with Old Kingdom culture in ways that disallow any total replacement of one people by a completely different one for the last six or so thousand years.
I don't get the reference, but howdy back atcha.
things here are pretty good. In a week I get to go attend the wedding of a woman I love very much... and I am not the groom :(
but she did ask me to come up, and it'll be nice to see her.
how's life in Kalifornistan?
don't assign that explanation to me - I, for one, favor the idea that the biblical flood story (and the Gilgamesh story, as well as a lot of other ones) is the garbled hand-me-down of oral traditions concerning the great flood following the collapse of the great-lakes ice-wall at the end of the last glaciation.
I didnt. Obviously I quoted mod. Because you were posting on the same thing I was...out of courtesy I included you so as not to ignore you.
just making things absolutely clear - a LOT of false attribution goes on in CREVO threads.
I understand your need for clarity. Later...
Probably because these are Indo-European myths rather than Semitic ones.
Another2x4 place mark
Or does chicken taste like t.rex.
PSSST!
You're talking with one of these...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.