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The only remains of the obscure but amusingly named Gasosaurus were discovered in 1985 by the employees of a Chinese gas-mining company. From the limited number of fossils, paleontologists believe that Gasosaurus resembled a vastly scaled-down Tyrannosaurus Rex, though its arms were a bit longer compared to its overall size.
Because so few fossils of Gasosaurus have been found, it's possible that this dinosaur may have been misclassified--and is in fact a species of Megalosaurus. Only future discoveries can settle this issue for sure.
Read more about dinosaurs like Gasosaurus: The Large Theropods - Megalosaurs, Ceratosaurs, Allosaurs and Carnosaurs
Photo: Royal BC Museum
New Dinosaur on the Block - Fruitadens
The late Jurassic period conjures up images of huge, lumbering sauropods. but not all the dinosaurs of this era were plus-sized. Witness the newly named Fruitadens, a squirrel-sized (no more than two pounds) dinosaur that scurried under the feet of its larger relatives about 150 million years ago. Believed to have been an omnivore, feeding on both plants and animals, Fruitadens is the current record-holder for "world's smallest dinosaur;" its closest relative was the much bigger Heterodontosaurus.
Besides its size, what's interesting about Fruitadens is that it seems to have occupied the same ecological niche as the earliest mammals, some of which were even tinier (the size of mice, say, instead of chipmunks). It's possible that these minuscule beasts constantly pursued and devoured one another, even as they stayed out of the way of stampeding herds of Brachiosaurus.
Dinosaur of the Day - Garudimimus
Just as a running coach can appraise an Olympic hopeful by the size and shape of her legs, so a paleontologist can infer the relative speed of an ornithomimid ("bird mimic") by analyzing these same features. Judging by its short legs, Garudimimus must have been a relatively undistinguished sprinter, especially compared to the speedier ornithomimids (like Struthiomimus and Dromiceiomimus) that inhabited North America during the later Cretaceous period.
For a long time, Garudimimus was believed to be the only ornithomimid with a decorated skull--a short crest in between its eyes. New research, though, shows that this "crest" didn't actually exist; the paleontologists who assembled the skeleton put a small bone in the wrong place!
Read more about dinosaurs like Garudimimus: Ornithomimids - The "Bird Mimics"
Illustration: Wikimedia Commons
Mixed Reception for Indian Meteor Theory
I recently reported about a stunning piece of research claiming that the extinction of the dinosaurs was caused by the impact of a huge meteor in western India, not the Yucatan Peninsula, as is the accepted wisdom. Well, according to this article on MSNBC, Texas Tech's Sankar Chatterjee just delivered his paper to a convention of the Geological Society of America, and not everyone was convinced.
The main objection to the Indian meteor theory boils down to this: what are the odds of two separate meteors striking the earth within a few (or ten thousand, or hundred thousand) years of each other, 65 million years ago, when such massive impacts are usually separated by vast aeons of time? It's conceivable, Chatterjee says, that both meteors split off in the earth's atmosphere from a larger object, but that doesn't answer the objections of other parties, who wonder if Chatterjee is misinterpreting the detritus from the Chicxulub crater (which reached all parts of the globe) as evidence for a new meteor impact.
Because so few fossils of Gasosaurus have been found, it's possible that this dinosaur may have been misclassified--and is in fact a species of Megalosaurus. Only future discoveries can settle this issue for sure.
Read more about dinosaurs like Gasosaurus: The Large Theropods - Megalosaurs, Ceratosaurs, Allosaurs and Carnosaurs
Photo: Royal BC Museum
New Dinosaur on the Block - Fruitadens
The late Jurassic period conjures up images of huge, lumbering sauropods. but not all the dinosaurs of this era were plus-sized. Witness the newly named Fruitadens, a squirrel-sized (no more than two pounds) dinosaur that scurried under the feet of its larger relatives about 150 million years ago. Believed to have been an omnivore, feeding on both plants and animals, Fruitadens is the current record-holder for "world's smallest dinosaur;" its closest relative was the much bigger Heterodontosaurus.
Besides its size, what's interesting about Fruitadens is that it seems to have occupied the same ecological niche as the earliest mammals, some of which were even tinier (the size of mice, say, instead of chipmunks). It's possible that these minuscule beasts constantly pursued and devoured one another, even as they stayed out of the way of stampeding herds of Brachiosaurus.
Dinosaur of the Day - Garudimimus
Just as a running coach can appraise an Olympic hopeful by the size and shape of her legs, so a paleontologist can infer the relative speed of an ornithomimid ("bird mimic") by analyzing these same features. Judging by its short legs, Garudimimus must have been a relatively undistinguished sprinter, especially compared to the speedier ornithomimids (like Struthiomimus and Dromiceiomimus) that inhabited North America during the later Cretaceous period.
For a long time, Garudimimus was believed to be the only ornithomimid with a decorated skull--a short crest in between its eyes. New research, though, shows that this "crest" didn't actually exist; the paleontologists who assembled the skeleton put a small bone in the wrong place!
Read more about dinosaurs like Garudimimus: Ornithomimids - The "Bird Mimics"
Illustration: Wikimedia Commons
Mixed Reception for Indian Meteor Theory
I recently reported about a stunning piece of research claiming that the extinction of the dinosaurs was caused by the impact of a huge meteor in western India, not the Yucatan Peninsula, as is the accepted wisdom. Well, according to this article on MSNBC, Texas Tech's Sankar Chatterjee just delivered his paper to a convention of the Geological Society of America, and not everyone was convinced.
The main objection to the Indian meteor theory boils down to this: what are the odds of two separate meteors striking the earth within a few (or ten thousand, or hundred thousand) years of each other, 65 million years ago, when such massive impacts are usually separated by vast aeons of time? It's conceivable, Chatterjee says, that both meteors split off in the earth's atmosphere from a larger object, but that doesn't answer the objections of other parties, who wonder if Chatterjee is misinterpreting the detritus from the Chicxulub crater (which reached all parts of the globe) as evidence for a new meteor impact.
Good info!