DINOSAURICON F
september 30, 2012 1 reactie
- Fabrosaurus – possibly Lesothosaurus
- Falcarius FALCARIUS
Falcarius: bizarre sickle-cutter
The truly strange looking animal above is Falcarius utahensis.
 |
.jpg)
In addition to the hands-on data, Lindsay Zanno had been hard at work publishing more detailed information on Falcarius (this is actually notable, as not all researchers are as timely with getting more detailed descriptions of a new animal into print). As the information piled up I felt that a skeletal was possible to be done. I ended up being asked to produce a skeletal of Falcarius for a display in the new Utah Museum of Natural History building (side note: the new UMNH building just opened, and houses one of the most impressive natural history displays in North America, ). Since I was working with the UMNH, I got valuable input from several of the researchers who worked on the specimens. They were able to provide additional information – I won’t go into the nitty-gritty of it (although you may if you would like), but I wanted to point out that the end result was quite a surprise to me.
Resulting skeletal in hand, you can compare it to the most recent studies of the therizinosaur family tree, as well as the excellent research being done by Lindsay Zanno and Peter Makovicky on the origin of plant-eating in theropod dinosaurs, and Falcarius starts to tell an interesting tail about the order in which therizinosaur traits appeared. Falcarius appears to already be specialized for browsing for high forage. Given the lack of an enlarged gut for fermentation it probably preferred to seek out higher-quality plant matter, like fruiting bodies or seeds. The partially upright stance appears concurrently with a widening of the passage through the pelvis (not visible in side view) allowing move guts into that area, causing the center of gravity to sit further back despite the elongation of the neck. The large hand claws (from which the authors derived the name “sickle-cutter”) may have allowed Falcarius to pick up small prey, but they also may have served as defense for a fairly slow animal with small teeth. The first toe is low and long enough to start interacting with the ground, perhaps to provide balance and stability when browsing high. All of these features would be carried to extremes in advanced therizinosaurs, but they seem to already be playing the same (albeit incipient) functional roles in Falcarius. So with Falcariuswe have an animal that at first glance appears inexplicably strange, but when viewed through the lens of where it was coming from (long-bodied small-headed meat eaters) and where it ends up (the upright, pot-bellied therizinosaurs) the combination of traits start to make a lot of sense.
Isn’t science grand?
References:Kirkland, J. I., Zanno, L. E., Sampson, S. D., Clark, J. M. & DeBlieux, D. D., 2005. A primitive therizinosauroid dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous of Utah. Nature, v435, pp 84-87.
Scientists have suggested a number of possible explanations for such mass deaths. Scott Sampson, chief curator at the Utah Museum of Natural History and an associate professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Utah. Sampson says that they include drought, volcanism, fire and botulism poisoning from water tainted by carcasses. Kirkland leans toward a theory developed by Celina and Marina Suarez, twins who are geology graduate students at Temple University in Philadelphia. Their research on carbonate-rich sediments in which the dinosaurs were buried suggests the area was near or in a spring, and that there were at least two mass die-offs . That raises the possibility the dinosaurs were drawn repeatedly to the site by water or an attractive food source – perhaps plants growing around the spring – and then the spring occasionally would poison the animals with toxic gas or water, Kirkland says.With almost 1,700 bones excavated during the past three years, scientists have about 90 percent of Falcarius’ bones, making it the most complete therizinosaurus specimen found to date. Falcarius “is the most primitive known therizinosaur, demonstrating unequivocally that this large-bodied group of bizarre herbivorous group of dinosaurs came from Velociraptor-like ancestors,” says study co-author Lindsay Zanno, a graduate student in geology and geophysics at the University of Utah and the Utah Museum of Natural History. Sampson maintains that Falcarius did not descend directly from Velociraptor, but both had a common, yet-undiscovered ancestor, says study co-author and paleontologist Kirkland says Falcarius likely was covered with shaggy, hair-like “proto-feathers,” which may or may not have had a shaft like those found in bird feathers. No feathers were found with the Falcarius fossils. Feathers rarely are preserved, but “a number of its close relatives found in China had feathers [preserved by unusual lake sediments], so the presumption is this animal too was feathered,” Sampson says. The previously unknown species provides clues about how vicious meat-eaters related to Velociraptor ultimately evolved into plant-munching vegetarians. The adult dinosaur walked on two legs and was about 13 feet long (4 meters) and stood 4.5 feet tall (1.4 meters). It had sharp, curved, 4-inch-long (10 centimeter) claws. Scientists do not yet know if the creature ate meat, plants or both. Kirkland said, “Falcarius shows the beginning of features we associate with plant-eating dinosaurs, including a reduction in size of meat-cutting teeth to leaf-shredding teeth, the expansion of the gut to a size needed to ferment plants, and the early stages of changing the legs so they could carry a bulky body instead of running fast after prey.” Falcarius, which dates to the Early Cretaceous Period about 125 million years ago, belongs to a group of dinosaurs known as therizinosaurs. Falcarius and Beipiaosaurus are about the same age and appear to represent an intermediate stage between deadly carnivores and later, plant-eating therizinosaurs. Falcarius is anatomically more primitive than the Chinese therizinosaurs.Falcarius had leaf-shaped teeth designed for shredding plants rather than the triangular, blade-like serrated teeth of its meat-eating relatives.Its pelvis was broader, indicating a larger gut to digest plant material, which is more difficult to process than meat. Its lower legs were stubby, presumably because it no longer needed to run after prey. Compared with carnivorous relatives, Falcarius’ neck was more elongated and its forelimbs were more flexible, perhaps for reaching plants to eat. Sampson says: “Falcarius represents evolution caught in the act, a primitive form that shares much in common with its carnivorous kin, while processing a variety of features demonstrating that it had embarked on the path toward more advanced plant-eating forms.” Falcarius means sickle-maker, so named because later plant-eating therizinosaurs had 3-foot-long, sickle-like claws. The species name, utahensis, comes from the fact the new species was discovered in east-central Utah, south of the town of Green River. Falcarius is the fourth new dinosaur species Kirkland has discovered in the Cedar Mountain Formation’s Yellow Cat member (a unit of the formation) in 11 years. Others are meat-eaters Utahraptor and Nedcolbertia, and an armored dinosaur named Gastonia. “Therizinosaurs have been found for 50 years in China and Mongolia, but were not recognized as a distinct group until about 25 years ago,” Sampson says. The only therizinosaur known previously from North America was Nothronychus, which Kirkland discovered in the late 1990s in New Mexico. It was 90 million years old, so scientists initially believed the older therizinosaurs in China had migrated over a land bridge from Asia through Alaska to the American Southwest. But due to the constantly shifting plates of Earth’s surface, Alaska didn’t exist 125 million years ago – the age of both Falcarius and the oldest known Chinese therizinosaur, Beipiaosaurus. So scientists now wonder if therizinosaurs originated in Asia and migrated through Europe to North America before the Atlantic Ocean basin opened up, or if they originated in North America and migrated through Europe to Asia. “Falcarius may have been home-grown,” Kirkland says.” This discovery puts the most primitive therizinosaurs in North America,” Zanno says. “This tells us that North America potentially could be the place of origin for this group of dinosaurs.” http://www.dinosaur-world.com/feathered_dinosaurs/falcarius_utahensis.htm http://palaeoblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/osteology-of-falcarius-utahensis.html http://skeletaldrawing.blogspot.com/2011/11/falcarius-bizarre-sickle-cutter.html http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050502/full/news050502-3.html http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v435/n7038/full/nature03468.html
- “Fenestrosaurus” – nomen nudum; Oviraptor
- Ferganasaurus
- Ferganocephale
- Frenguellisaurus – junior synonym of Herrerasaurus
“Frickopod”
.
.
.
.
Fruitadenshttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/science/27obdino.html?ref=dinosaurs
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
. .
.
.
.
.
fruitadens haagorum.jpg
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/277/1680/375/F2.expansion.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruitadenshttp://sciencythoughts.blogspot.com/2012/04/heterodontosaurid-dinosaur-from-late.html
http://www.nhm.org/site/research-collections/dinosaur-institute/whats-new
Life restoration of Fukuiraptor.
- Fukuisaurus
- Fukuititan
- Fulengia
- Fulgurotherium
- “Fusinasus” – nomen nudum; Eotyrannus
- Fusuisaurus
- “Futabasaurus” – nomen nudum; not to be confused with the formally-named plesiosaur Futabasaurus
Futalognkosaurus dukei (Calvo et. al. 2007) Taxonomy: Saurischia; Sauropodomorpha; Sauropoda; Macronaria; Titanosauria; Lognkosauria “Great Chief Lizard of Duke Energy Company” Time: Late Cretaceous (Turonian-Coniacian epochs, ~ 90-87 million years ago) Length: ~30m Probable Mass: ~ 65-70 tons Hailing from Late Cretaceous Argentina, Futalognkosaurus dukei was one of the most massive dinosaurs ever known, with the deepest neck on record and a colossal pelvis exceeding 2m at its widest point. It’s also the most complete giant titanosaur known, though due to the current lack of reliable measurements it’s hard to tell just how “giant” the entire animal was. My skeletal reconstruction is done based on extensive cross-scaling using the best known unpublished photos and verifying the most reliable of the published measurements with the sizes of the people said photos. Futalognkosaurus was a member of the family Lognkosauria, a transitional group of titanosaurs with a plethora of strange and extreme skeletal features, including extremely wide dorsal vertebrae and rib cages. They ranged from the small (Malawisaurus) to the colossal (Puertasaurus). Futalognkosaurus, a Late Cretaceous lognkosaur, was one of the larger members of the family, and so far the one with the tallest neck bones – indeed it may have proportionally the deepest neck of any sauropod with the exception of Isisaurus. Currently this recon shows Futalognkosaurus at (30m), rivaling Argentinosaurus in length, and likely exceeding both Paralititan and Argyrosaurus. Nevertheless the width of the vertebrae, though impressive, indicates it is still significantly smaller than both Puertasaurusand the new adult Alamosaurus remains, and it may also be outclassed by Ruyangosaurus giganteus and Huanghetitan ruyangensis. http://svpow.com/2009/10/20/futalognkosaurus-was-one-big-ass-sauropod/ The remains of the Futalognkosaurus Dukei 
- “Futalongkosaurus” – variant spelling of Futalognkosaurus
| GROUP = FEATHERED DINO’S
http://www.dinosaur-world.com/feathered_dinosaurs/0-feathered_dinosaurs.htm
|
|
| MYA | |
| Compsognathus |
150 |
| Sinosauropteryx |
130 |
| Therizinosauroidea | |
| Beipiaosaurus |
130 |
| Falcarius |
125 |
| Alxasaurus |
112 |
| Erlikosaurus |
95 |
| Therizinosaurus |
75 |
| Oviraptoridae | |
| Caudipteryx |
140 |
| Insicivosaurus |
120 |
| Avimimus |
95 |
| Chirostenotes |
70 |
| Rinchenia |
70 |
| Nomingia |
68 |
| Oviraptor |
67 |
| Dromaeosauridae | |
| Microraptor |
126 |
| Deinonychus |
120 |
| Buitreraptor |
90 |
| Unenlagia |
90 |
| Bambiraptor |
80 |
| Atrociraptor |
70 |
| Dromaeosaurus |
70 |
| Velociraptor |
67 |
| Tyrannosauridae | |
| Dilong |
130 |
| Troodontidae | |
| Mei long | 130 |
| Sinornithoides |
105 |
| Troodon |
67 |
| Alvarezsauridae | |
| Patagonykus | 95 |
| Shuvuuia | 80 |
| Alvarezsaurus | 80 |
| Parvicursor | 80 |
| Mononykus | 70 |
| Aves (birds) | |
| Protarchaeopteryx |
135 |
| Archaeopteryx |
147 |
Over tsjok45
Tsjok's blog 
Pingback: archaeopteryx « Tsjok's blog