Skulls of new dinosaur species found in Utah

[Judi Lynn]

Skulls of new dinosaur species found in Utah
The rare find may shed light on Abydosaurus, a species of plant-eating sauropod. One of the skulls is intact.
By Amina Khan

February 27, 2010

Scientists have made a rare find: four skulls of a new species of giant plant-eating dinosaur, one of them completely intact.

Skulls of plant-eating dinosaurs were so light and fragile that they have rarely been preserved to be discovered by paleontologists. Reaction to the find, made in Dinosaur National Monument in eastern Utah, was "probably not printable in a newspaper," said Dan Chure, a paleontologist with the monument.

"Everyone was really dumbfounded," Chure said. "You can go your entire career without seeing one of these. . . . To find multiple heads was just phenomenal."

Abydosaurus, which lived about 100 million years ago, is a type of sauropod, the largest kind of dinosaur to walk on land. Like its relative Brachiosaurus, the long-necked Abydosaurus had a massive body with tree-trunk legs but a relatively tiny head, about one-two-hundredth the size of its body mass. The smallest sauropods could weigh as little as 10 tons; the largest as much as 50 or 60 tons.

More:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-dinosaur27-2010feb27,0,4523309.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fnews%2Fnationworld%2Fnation+%28L.A.+Times+-+National+News%29

http://i.usatoday.net.nyud.net:8090/communitymanager/_photos/science-fair/2010/02/21/Abydosaurus1x-inset-community.jpg http://i.usatoday.net.nyud.net:8090/communitymanager/_photos/science-fair/2010/02/21/aby4x-inset-community.jpg
Feb 23, 2010
New dinosaur species, skulls discovered in Utah

Dinosaur hunters announced a new species of sauropod on Tuesday, revealed in the first skulls of the giant plant-eaters found from 105 million years ago.

"It is amazing. You can hold the skull in your hands and look into the eyes of something that lived a very long time ago," says paleontologist Brooks Britt of Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, a member of the team publishing the Naturwissenschaftenjournal study. The team led by Daniel Chure of Dinosaur National Monument in Jensen, Utah, found the four skulls -- one complete, two nearly-complete and one partial skull -- in a block of sandstone only about a quarter-mile from the national monument site's museum.

The study describes a new dinosaur species Abydosaurus mcintoshi, (the name honors the Egyptian city that in mythology held the head of the god Osiris, and dinosaur-hunting physicist Jack McIntosh) based on the four skulls. The juvenile sauropod dinosaurs were about 25 feet long when they died, and would have doubled in size at adulthood, Britt estimates. Sauropods were the four-footed, long-necked and long-tailed dinosaurs that chewed low vegetation during the Age of Dinosaurs.

"I can tell you that the new fossils are quite sensational. It's very rare for the skulls of sauropods to survive fossilization, because they are so lightly built," says paleontologist Mike Taylor of University College London, by email. "It's extraordinary that the Abydosaurus is represented not by one good skull but by three."

More:
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2010/02/dinosaur-skulls-reveal-sauropod-secrets/1

[ashling]

1. I know I'm being picky, BUT

This is hardly a new species, as the dinosaurs died out millions of years ago.
:evilgrin: :evilgrin:

[ChairmanAgnostic]

3. I don't agree. There is a hell of a resemblance to Cheney, both Dick & Liz

I think it has to do with the self-satisfied smirk.

[potone]

2. Orin Hatch's ancestors?