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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.
I can't tell you it's not, 'cos it is!
Wait - we can change our handles now???I invite everyone still following this thread to reread all the posts I’ve mentioned and those in between noticing that the ‘reply to’ name is concisetraveler to the posts whose “by” name now shows goodseedhomeschool (returned).
Curses, foiled again!
There is no defense for stalking and trying to dig up private dirt on people. There is also no defense for the continued attempt to defame goodseed and get her banned again. These are the actions of petty tyrants who unable to engage in honest discussion try to silence opponents.
Awwwww. :-( I got home so late last night I just did not have time. I am sorry.
Let me get this straight. You say that the evos demand to be believed rather than pursuade? Say it ain't so! How could they opt not to pursuade when they claim to have mountains of evidence? Why don't they just bury creationists with the evidence? Why do they have to be so dogmatic? I thought they were against dogmatism.
As for them breaking their agreement,
I told you so.
I don't trust anyone who pretends to "understand" a rule of physics that suggests that nothing can blow up into a 100 billion gallaxy universe. I loved my physics class and my teachers said I was a natural. But there seems to be a point at which "physicists" lose it and start to see the emperor's clothes.
Stupid definition, unless it is meant to include the usages of religion in a figurative sense. By this defniition, football, quilting, exercise, or even cleaning house could be a religion.
Read the Seamus Haney parellel-text Beowulf last year. I was only skimming the AS side of the page for the phrase here and there that can still be recognized as some kin to English.
What I came away with is a sense of amazement at how much the language changed from 1066 to Chaucer's day.
I still have trouble seeing goodseed doing the ALS "you sissy girly-boys" act that the redux version fell into with Aric (whom goodseed knew well enough to know better). But goodseed has not exactly been acting like Aunt Bee from Mayberry since she left here. (Somebody has hastily read-protected some of the evidence on another forum. Don't their guilty little minds know that God can still see?)
But they need to look again, 'cause there's still plenty to be ashamed of hanging out for all to see.
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