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Posted on 08/13/2003 9:02:05 PM PDT by nwrep
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2 hours, 55 minutes ago
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By RAMOLA TALWAR BADAM, Associated Press Writer
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.
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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.
India has seen quite a few paleontological discoveries recently.
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.
He is not here to comment on the use of his picture and it needs to be removed immediately. You are making a fool of yourself..along with your evo-friends.
I never set out to find a picture of anyone. That picture came up in google search of goodseedhomeschool -- who is a current poster on this thread and seems to have some relationship with the unnamed former poster, since they come up together on google searches.
There are two other Enochs - one which is Slavonic, 2 Enoch, and the other, 3 Enoch, which is a Hebrew Apocalypse by Rabbi Ishmael in 132 A.D. (approx) so it probably isn't relevant to this project.
The one you are reading - 1 Enoch - is the oldest and most complete. It was first discovered in Ethiopia (in the Ge'ez language) where it had been preserved but was then confirmed by the finding of the 200 B.C. Aramaic copies at Qumran. It is most likely the one referenced by Jude.
The 2 Enoch is also quite interested, particularly in its prophesies concerning the 7,000 years allowed for Adamic man (including the 1,000 perfect era at the end.) It is highly fragmented and the origin is much in dispute, though there is some indication it may have been translated from Greek.
I'm planning on doing a summary of this research into the book of astronomy and posting it here for anyone interested. I'll also probably add it to my article on Origins.
AtomicLibSmasher, who in one of those freak coincidences was banned when ALS was.
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