Dinosaur news 12.11.15: new dinos, fossil blood vessels, dino poop and more!

It's been a pretty good week in dinosaur and evolution related news. Honestly, so much stuff was posted this week it was hard to keep up!

Fossilized Blood Vessels!

Fossilization of tissue is almost impossible. Almost. These amazing jewels of information are so rare only a few precious handfuls have been found in the entire fossil record.

We have found only a few of these gems, mostly in skin and feather impressions, but every so often someone brilliant finds something hidden the bones.

This particular trophy was discovered inside a hardosaur leg bone.

What does finding fossilized blood vessel mean, actually?

Unfortunately, it does not mean that Jurassic Park is in our future, so we’ll take a moment of silence for the heartbreak.

It’s ok to cry a little.

There was no actual blood inside, so no DNA to clone and make inaccurate, featherless hybrid monsters dinosaurs.

The good news is this find may shed some light into the proteins involved in dinosaur evolution by comparing it to their living relatives, birds and crocodiles.

So while no DNA was left over, the remains of the blood vessels proteins are still intact, which is a fantastic find.

Full article can be found here.

Sauropod tracks found in Scotland!

I’m going to refrain from making the “Nessy” joke about the “long neck” creature in a lagoon in Scotland. It's just too easy. :P 

Early theories of sauropod life. Not at all what is believed
now, even with these tracks.

These tracks are like a treasure trove because of the lagoon sediment that the prints were found in. Back in the early days of understanding these giant, strange creatures, one of the more popular thoughts is that these beasts lived in the water, using their long necks to stick their heads up from under the water.

This was back before we had a much better idea of the body mass for these creatures, and how exactly the necks articulated.

This new finding, which is the largest find in Scotland so far, shows that these unknown species of sauropods spent time in shallow water and by coast lines. They aren’t sure which species made the prints, but they know the prints were made during the Triassic period. Not a lot is known about sauropods during this time period, so finding these tracks is helping paleontologists better understand the species during this time.

This is a National Geographic site with the full article is really amazing, because it not only has great pictures but also some short video clips. Beautifully done and fun to watch.

What were dinosaurs's nests like?

Very little is known about how dinosaurs cared of their young because there’s no dinosaurs left to study in the flesh. There have been fossilized eggs found, some of which yielding amazing baby dino skeletons, but it doesn't really show how the parent/parents rared their young. Paleontoloists started studying the porousness of these eggshells of living cousins of dinosaurs to help determain the nature of their nests.

By comparing the shells to living relatives eggs, paleontologists can determine if the eggs were buried in the ground like cros, or left in the open like birds. Shells with bigger pores typically meant the animal buried its nests like modern day crocodiles, and eggs with smaller pores are more inline with modern bird's open-air nests.
This helps build a bigger picture for how dinosaurs raised their young, if they did at all.
Full article here, if you want to take a look.

Dinosaur Poop

Not just any poop, but fossilized dinosaur poop! In a great headline that reads "Giant Turds showed that Dinosaurs dined on flowering plants", you know it's going to be a great read. 

These particular pieces of poopy were dated to be from the late Cretaceous from a large planet eating dinosaur who dined on angiosperms, or "flowering plants". The reason this is so interesting is not only because we know what they were eating from 65 million year old shit, but also because the food source may have been very important to their survival and diversity. Coprolite, poop-turn-fossil, are extremely rare so finding a uh...sample...that has evidence of diet is pretty amazing, and hilarious.

Mammal evolution and distant cousins

The mammal family tree is ancient and complex, and could stretch back a little further than we originally thought.

Paleontologists are now reexamining the remains of one of our earliest rodent-like relatives, Haramiyavia. After careful review of the teeth and jaw structures of specimens found, paleontologists are suggesting that

Haramiyavia may not be a “crown mammal”, or a starting point for mammalian evolution. If Haramiyavia IS a crown mammal, that means mammals origins started in the Early Triassic, if not then it’s likely mammals started much later down the pipeline. If we did start in the early Triassic, that means that mammal ancestors survived two mass extinctions, one at the end of the Triassic and then again in the Late Cretaceous. Making us kind of a big deal as a class.

Jury is still out scientifically speaking. There are other studies that still keep this little dude as a crown mammal, so he has not been de-throned just yet.

Check out Haramiyavia’s new findings here.

Meet Kunbarrasaurus!

This new ankylosaur from Australia is possibly early on the evolutionary tree. Another great find for Australia this year!

Ankylosaurs are cool in general, but what makes Kunbarrasaurus so great is just how well preserved it is. This fossil is probably the best specimen ever found of any ankylosaur which enabled paleontologists to get a detailed scan of it’s brain casing and inner ears. It also seems to be less armored than other ankylosaurs, which means it’s probably an early ancestor to the bigger, tankier hulks.

I imagine that Kunbarrasaurs had a good Aussy accent and liked taking it easy. But I base that off zero scientific evidence.

Another fun fact, according to the article, Kunbarrasaurus has a large inner ear, similar to that of modern turtles. Not sure what that means at this point, but I thought it was interesting.