nandi's blog

Modern Birds Inherited Colored Eggs from Their Dinosaur Ancestors, Study Says

Saturday, November 3, 2018

The colors found in modern birds’ eggs did not evolve independently, as previously thought, but evolved instead from dinosaurs. This is an artist’s impression of the oviraptorid dinosaur Huanansaurus ganzhouensis. Image credit: Chuang Zhao.

Modern birds inherited their egg color from non-avian dinosaur ancestors that laid eggs in fully or partially open nests, according to new research led by Yale University researcher Jasmina Wiemann.

“This completely changes our understanding of how egg colors evolved,” said Wiemann, a paleontologist in the Department of Geology & Geophysics at Yale University.

“For two centuries, ornithologists assumed that egg color appeared in modern birds’ eggs multiple times, independently.”

The egg colors of birds reflect characteristic preferences in nesting environments and brooding behaviors.

Modern birds use only two pigments — blue-green biliverdin and red-brown protoporphyrin IX — to create all of the various egg colors, spots, and speckles.

Wiemann and her colleagues from the American Museum of Natural History and the University of Bonn analyzed 18 fossil dinosaur eggshell samples from around the world, using non-destructive laser microspectroscopy to test for the presence of the two eggshell pigments.

A nesting cassowary-like dinosaur named Beibeilong sinensis in the act of incubating eggs. Image credit: Zhao Chuang.

They found the pigments in eggshells belonging to Eumaniraptoran dinosaurs, which include small, carnivorous dinosaurs such as Velociraptor.

“We infer that egg color co-evolved with open nesting habits in dinosaurs,” Wiemann explained.

“Once dinosaurs started to build open nests, exposure of the eggs to visually hunting predators and even nesting parasites favored the evolution of camouflaging egg colors, and individually recognizable patterns of spots and speckles.”

Egg colors of archosaurs: the internal nodes are (1) Archosauria, (2) Dinosauria, (3) Ornithischia, (4) Saurischia, (5) Eumaniraptora, (6) Paraves and (7) Aves; the egg icon in the phylogeny labels Eumaniraptora. All species are represented by an icon indicating egg shape, and an example of reconstructed color. If eggshell pigments are present, the area below the spectral function is colored in blue (biliverdin) or orange (protoporphyrin IX), and all pigment bands are labeled with either blue (biliverdin) or red (protoporphyrin IX) dots. Photographs show the samples and nest icons encode three nesting strategies: buried, (partially) open ground and open tree nesting. AU – arbitrary units. Image credit: Wiemann et al, doi: 10.1038/s41586-018-0646-5.

“Colored eggs have been considered a unique bird characteristic for over a century,” said co-author Dr. Mark Norell, the Macaulay Curator of Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History.

“Like feathers and wishbones, we now know that egg color evolved in their dinosaur predecessors long before birds appeared.”

The study is published in the journal Nature.

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Jasmina Wiemann et al. Dinosaur egg colour had a single evolutionary origin. Nature, published online October 31, 2018; doi: 10.1038/s41586-018-0646-5

Source: www.sci-news.com

Here’s An Aussie Travel Guide For Seeing Real-Deal Dinosaur Stuff In The Wild

Saturday, November 3, 2018

Richard Hunter lies next to a 1.7m dinosaur footprint belonging to a sauropod. (Supplied: Steve Salisbury)

Attention dino nerds: I’ve thrown together an Australian dinosaur travel guide, you’re welcome. Why? My sister is one of you, so you can thank her. Actually let’s just make that a science buff, seeing as the girl has a favourite constellation. As in an actual star formation, I kid you not.

I found that out on the same family trip I took last year through America that also saw us heading through the Arizona desert to Tuba City to walk in some dinosaur footprints. Yes, actually walk. Terrible for conservation sure, but hey, if everyone else gets to do it (yes I know, very bad, no good attitude, I’m SORRY).

The experience of seeing actual, indisputable remains from these giant creatures from the planet’s past was surreal, even for me, someone who doesn’t really care for them beyond Jurassic Park. If a road trip through the U.S.A. isn’t quite on the agenda right now, the good news is you can get all your dino nerd needs on our fair shores.

With no further ado, if you’re hunkering for a dino adventure, here’s the Aussie Dinosaur Travel Guide you never knew you needed:

Lark Quarry

A casual 95 million years ago, this now very dry part of Queensland was a huge river, obviously a place that dinosaurs fancied a little drink. Which explains why there would be so many footprints now spread out along the ground there. Well, almost explains it.

They now call it the Dinosaur Stampede National Monument, a name they attribute to, you guessed it, the stry of a stampede the footprints tell. Apparently, at least 150 different dinos were doing their thing by the water when they got rudely interupted by a T. rex who realised it was a great oppoutunity for a snack. Bada bing, bada boom, everyone flees and leaves the chaos of footprints in the mud that’s been fossilized today.

The Broome Sandstone

Up the southern end of Cable Beach Broome conceals a bunch of 140 million year old dinosaur footprints impressed deeply into the sandstone. They were originally discovered in 1945 by Walter Jones ‘at extreme low spring tide’ near the Point Gantheaume Lighthouse. The sandstone was of course just sand back then, making it the perfect mould for the heavy imprints of dino feet.

The Western Australian Naturalists Club report that after conducting further research himself, Director of the WA Museum Ludwig Glauert discovered more footprints and even managed to find what he belives is “a cast interpreted as a cow-sized young sauropod rolling on its back in soft sand“. Aka, a baby dino having a big play in the sand like a good boy.

Milanesia Beach And Dinosaur Cove

In Victoria we have a fun combination of bones and footprints. In fact, this is where the first confirmed dinosaur bones in Australia were found, back in 1903 by geologist William Hamilton Ferguson. Almost a century later peeps from the National Museum of Victoria returned to the site to excavate the bones, a search that was furthered by palaeontologist Dr Thomas Richwhen he noticed similar formations nearby.

In 2011, he and his American colleague Anthony Martin also discovered a dino footprint cluster about 10 km from the cove on Milanesia Beach.  The discovery brought the state of Victoria’s number of dinosaur footprints from 4 to, well at least another 24 confirmed tracks, each about 105 million years old. You can read more about the discovery on Anthony’s blog, The Great Cretaceous Walk.

National Dinosaur Museum

It ain’t footprints, but it IS a museum dedicated entirely to our past dino friends in our nation’s capital so it made the list. They have 23 full dinosaur skeletons and over 300 fossils on display, so there’s still clearly a lot of real-life evidence of this big ol’ creatures. They have guided tours and workshops too so you can get amongst it.

Source: www.pedestrian.tv

Lavocatisaurus agrioensis: New Sauropod Unearthed in Argentina

Sunday, November 4, 2018

Canudo, Carballido, Garrido & Salgado, 2018  Illustration: Gabriel Lio.

Sauropod that lived 110 million years ago is found in area that would have been desert.

A team of Spanish and Argentinian paleontologists have discovered the remains of dinosaurs that lived 110m years ago in the centre of the country, the National University of La Matanza has revealed.

The remains came from three separate dinosaurs from the herbivorous group of sauropods, the best known of which are the Diplodocus and Brontosaurus. This new species has been named Lavocatisaurus agrioensis.

“We found most of the cranial bones: the snout, the jaws, a lot of teeth, also the bones that define the eye sockets for example and, in that way, we were able to create an almost complete reconstruction,” said Jose Luis Carballido, a researcher at the Egidio Feruglio museum and the national council of scientific investigations.

Parts of the neck, tail and back were also found.

 Spanish and Argentine investigators working on the extraction of the remains of three dinosaurs in the Argentine province of Neuquen. Photograph: HO/AFP/Getty Images

“Not only is this the discovery of a new species in an area where you wouldn’t expect to find fossils, but the skull is almost complete,” added Carballido.

The remains belonged to an adult about 12 metres long, and two young of six to seven metres.

The paleontologists say the dinosaurs moved around in a group and died together.

“This discovery of an adult and two juveniles also signifies the first record of a group displacement among the rebbachisaurus dinosaurs,” said the study’s lead author Jose Ignacio Canudo of Zaragoza University.

The area in which the fossils were found is unusual for dinosaurs as it would have been a desert with sporadic lakes in that era.

Sauropods were the biggest creatures ever to walk the planet. It is believed that Supersaurus could reach up 33–34 metres in length and Argentinosaurus might have weighed up to 120 tonnes.

They were herbivorous quadrupeds with long necks and tails, massive bodies and small heads.

But the discovery in the province of Neuquen, published in the scientific journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, remains a huge surprise.

“While one can imagine that this group of sauropods could have adapted to move in more arid environments, with little vegetation, little humidity and little water, it’s an area in which you wouldn’t be looking for fossils,” said Carballido.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Study: Elephant Birds were Nocturnal, Possibly Blind

Friday, November 2, 2018

An artist’s interpretation of elephant birds foraging in the ancient forests of Madagascar at night. Image credit: John Maisano / University of Texas at Austin Jackson School of Geosciences.

The recently extinct Malagasy elephant birds included the largest birds ever discovered. Seven species are recognized across two genera, including the larger Aepyornis and the smaller, gracile Mullerornis. The neuroanatomy of these enigmatic birds is understudied but can shed light on their lifestyle. In a study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, researchers from the University of Texas at Austin examined the neuroanatomy of two elephant bird species, Aepyornis maximus and A. hildebrandti, and found that the part of the elephant bird brain that processed vision was tiny, a trait that indicates they were nocturnal and possibly blind.

Elephant birds were large, flightless and lived in what is now Madagascar until a mixture of habitat loss and potential human meddling led to their demise between 500 and 1,000 years ago.

“Humans lived alongside, and even hunted, elephant birds for thousands of years,” said lead author Christopher Torres, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Texas at Austin.

“But we still know practically nothing about their lives. We don’t even really know exactly when or why they went extinct.”

Ornithologists had previously assumed that elephant birds were similar to other big, flightless birds, like emus and ostriches — both of which are active during the day and have good eyesight.

But Torres and his colleague, University of Texas at Austin’s Professor Julia Clarke, revealed that elephant birds had distinctly different lifestyles through reconstructions of their brains.

The researchers studied the skulls of two species of elephant birds: Aepyornis maximus and A. hildebrandti.

By using CT-imaging data of the skulls, they were able to create digital brain reconstructions called endocasts.

In addition to the elephant bird skulls, they also created endocasts for close relatives of the elephant bird, both living and extinct.

In both elephant bird skulls, the optic lobe — a bundle of brain nerves that controls eyesight — was very small, with the structure almost absent in the larger species, Aepyornis maximus.

“The lobe had the most in common with that of the kiwi, a practically blind, chicken-size denizen of New Zealand, which came as a total shock because of the kiwi’s poor vision and nocturnal behavior,” Torres said.

“No one has ever suspected that elephant birds were nocturnal. The few studies that speculated on what their behavior was like explicitly assumed they were active during the day,” he said.

In addition to vision, the endocasts rendering of the olfactory bulb — the part of the brain that processes the sense of smell — helped shed light on the habitats where elephant birds lived.

The larger Aepyornis maximus had a large olfactory bulb, a trait associated with forest dwelling.

In contrast, the smaller Aepyornis hildebrandti had a smaller olfactory bulb, possibly indicating that it lived in grasslands.

The smaller species also appears to have somewhat keener vision, which means it may have been more active at dusk than during the pitch black of night.

“Details like these not only tell us about what the lives of elephant birds were like, but also what life in general was like on Madagascar in the distant past,” Professor Clarke said.

“As recently as 500 years ago, very nearly blind, giant flightless birds were crashing around the forests of Madagascar in the dark. No one ever expected that.”

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Christopher R. Torres & Julia A. Clarke. 2018. Nocturnal giants: evolution of the sensory ecology in elephant birds and other palaeognaths inferred from digital brain reconstructions. Proc. R. Soc. B 285 (1890); doi: 10.1098/rspb.2018.1540

Source: www.sci-news.com

The Board Game Jurassic Park Danger! Is A Lot Of Fun

Friday, November 2, 2018

Kidsday reporters Christopher Qu, Kenneth Chang and Justin Tao playing Jurassic Park Danger! board game. Photo Credit: Janet Rumble

Some kids will say that many people don’t play board games anymore, but we promise this game will bring lots of good times.

We played Jurassic Park Danger! board game (Ravensburger). It is a two- to five-player game with one player as the dinosaur and the other players as the human characters. The goal for the humans is to escape Jurassic Park, and the dinosaur’s goal is to eliminate the humans.

There are three control points on the board, and you have to get to all of them and activate them to escape by getting to the helicopter. You also have to choose a character and then complete their goal to escape. What’s unique about this game is that you have to assemble the game board yourself, so it will be different every time you play.

There are also eight characters with different roles to play, which means that you can keep playing without getting bored. The game says it takes 50 minutes to play, and the instructions are a little complicated. We recommend this game for people who like slower games. You need a lot of focus and patience while you play this game.

The game can be played with two players, but when you have three to five it is way more fun. At the beginning we didn’t want to play, but after the game ended we realized that it was a lot of fun. While playing there were many funny moments. This game was one of the best board games that we had ever played. We promise that it’s better spending time with your friends in real life compared to just playing video games. So go out and buy this game and play your friends.

Source: www.newsday.com

These Dinosaurs Tooted Their Own Horns

Thursday, November 1, 2018

An illustration of two Parasaurolophus dinosaurs bellowing at each other to claim territory.  Corey Ford/Getty Images

The sounds made by duck-billed dinosaurs are less of a mystery now.

Duck-billed dinosaurs may have “tooted” different notes from their trumpet-like nasal passages depending on what species they were, new research suggests.

Paleontologists made this discovery while studying an unnamed species of the duck-billed Parasaurolophus. This type of dinosaur had nasal passages connected to a hollow crest that stretched over the back of its head.

They discovered that this type of Parasaurolophus would’ve been able to produce a sound with a different pitch than two other species of Parasaurolophus. Specifically, it would’ve produced a lower pitch than the P. cyrtocristatus and a higher pitch than the P. walkeri.

This suggests that different species of duck-billed dinosaurs marched to the beat of their own drum, so to speak, by tooting different notes on their horns.

Paleontologists are still investigating whether the unnamed Parasaurolophus is a previously unknown species or a known species at a different life cycle or sex than we’ve seen before. They presented this unpublished research at the 78th annual Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in October 2018, according to Live Science.

One of the reasons these findings are so significant is that we don’t know what sounds dinosaurs made with their vocal cords. That’s because it’s hard to find fossilized versions of these cords, which are soft tissue.

In contrast, the Parasaurolophus’ naval cavities and hollow crests are much more easily preserved. These don’t give us all the clues, but they do give us a peek into what dinosaurs may have sounded like.

“We can never be exactly certain what sounds these dinosaurs actually made,” Caroline Rinaldi, an associate professor of anatomy at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, told Live Science (Rinaldi isn’t involved with the new research). “But the authors used an innovative combination of physics and physiological principles to develop a hypothesis that different species of Parasaurolophus (with different crest shapes), produced sounds of different frequencies.”

Source: www.history.com

Beetle in Amber Offers Insight Into Drift of Ancient Continents

Wednesday, October 31, 2018

The fossil beetle, Propiestus archaicus, preserved in amber. (Field Museum/Shuhei Yamamoto)

A 99 million-year-old beetle trapped in amber offers scientists hints about how Earth’s landmasses were arranged long ago, according to a paper published in the Journal of Systematic Paleontology.

“This is a very rare find,” Field Museum researcher and lead author Shuhei Yamamoto said. “This fossil helps us understand life in the Mesozoic era,” he said. “We need to think about everything from that time, both big and small.”

Yamamoto obtained the penny-sized piece of Burmese amber from Hukawng Valley in northern Myanmar, near China’s southern border, in 2016. He had a hunch the three-millimeter insect trapped inside the amber could help him show why our world looks the way it does now.

Yamamoto used sandpaper to carefully polish the amber just enough to make the beetle clearly visible.

“It was very exciting, because the cutting process is very sensitive,” Yamamoto said. “If you cut too fast or apply too much pressure, you destroy the inclusion inside very quickly.”

Once the amber was polished and the beetle was clearly visible, Yamamoto and his colleagues studied the beetle to determine its closest living relatives. Yamamoto found the insect, smaller than the phone-end of an iPhone charger, was a new species to science and a relative of insects alive today that live under tree bark.

The fossil beetle is one of the oldest known members of its family. Its name, Propiestus archaicus, refers to the fact that it’s an ancient relative of the flat rove beetles in the Piestus genus that now dominate South America, with the exception of one species in southern Arizona. But the fossil beetle was found in Myanmar, literally on the other side of the globe from these places.

It hasn’t always been that way.

While dinosaurs roamed much of Earth 99 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous, Propiestus – with its flattened body and short legs – was busy conquering smaller turf underneath the bark of rotting trees. Its long, slender antennae were the clear giveaway to Yamamoto that Propiestus had lived in this environment similar to the modern-day flat rove beetles.

“The antennae probably had a highly sensitive ability as a sensory organ,” Yamamoto said, as smaller hair-like structures attached perpendicular to the antennae would have increased its ability to feel out its surroundings. “There wouldn’t have been a lot of space available in the beetle’s habitat, so it was important to be able to detect everything,” he explained.

Millions of years ago, Myanmar and South America were actually quite close to each other, all fused together as part of the megacontinent Gondwanaland which formed when the earlier megacontinent Pangea broke apart. Gondwanaland itself eventually broke apart, helping to form the continents we recognize on a map today.

Scientists have a clear sense of which of today’s continents and subcontinents comprised Gondwanaland and made up its sister continent Laurasia. However, the detailed timing and pattern of Gondwanaland’s split into smaller continents is disputable.

Searching for supporting or contrasting evidence means analyzing fossils, some as small as Propiestus, to compare their similarities to other organisms discovered across the globe that might have inhabited the same space long ago.

“Like koalas and kangaroos today, certain animals that we think lived in Gondwanaland are only found in one part of the world. Although Propiestus went extinct long ago, our finding probably shows some amazing connections between Southern Hemisphere and Myanmar,” Yamamoto said.

“Our finding fits well with the hypothesis that, unlike today, Myanmar was once located in the Southern Hemisphere.”

Many inclusions in Burmese amber that have been researched in the last 15 years, including Propiestus, show signs that show traits in common with insects from Gondwanaland. By studying these tiny creatures trapped in amber, we’re finding answers to the questions about Earth’s structure and the life it supported millions of years ago.

Many small insects that lived during the Cretaceous died at the hands of tree sap that engulfed the bugs and hardened into amber. The trapped bugs fossilized and remained frozen for millions of years, unaffected by the passage of time. The hardened amber, covered by soil, decayed leaves, and other organic material, eventually blended in with its surroundings.

Because of this, amber in nature doesn’t look like it does in jewelry–in fact, it doesn’t look like anything special at all. The small clumps of unpolished amber look like rocks and only those experienced in amber identification, mostly local miners, are able to find them.

After miners extract the amber, the clumps are either sold into the jewelry trade or to scientists like Yamamoto to study the creatures frozen inside.

Source: www.courthousenews.com

Paleontologists Discovered Six New Species In The East African Rift

Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Sometimes hidden clues beneath our feet can reveal intriguing stories about the impacts of environmental change.

Six new species of invertebrates were discovered during a paleontological exploration of rift deposits in southwestern Tanzania by Ohio University professor, Nancy Stevens and her research team. After analyzing invertebrate fossils that were alive 24 to 26 million years ago in the Rukwa Rift Basin, OHIO paleontologists published the first documentation of a rapid diversification of freshwater gastropod species at a time of pivotal environment change in this specific area. Their article, "Morphological diversification of ampullariid gastropods (Nsungwe Formation, Late Oligocene, Rukwa Rift Basin, Tanzania) is coincident with onset of East African rifting," was published in Papers in Palaeontology.

"From the very start of this project, I was extremely intrigued because we were working on rare fossils from a geologically interesting location," said Y. Ranjeev Epa, M.S. '17, an Ohio University geology master's student who studied and identified the fossils for his thesis. "These fossils had a lot of interesting stories to tell us and I am very happy that we were able to expand the existing knowledge on the evolutionary history, ecology and biogeography of this family."

The new species evolved in what is now known as the East African Rift about 25 million years ago, as the Horn of Africa began splitting away from the mainland due to movements of the earth's plates. This interval in time is called the late Oligocene, a key period of transition between ancient and more modern ecosystems. The research team emphasized how the discovery of these new species can help us understand how organisms respond to environmental change.

"The timing of this evolutionary burst is coincident with the onset of the timing of the East African Rift," said Dr. Alycia Stigall, Professor of Geological Sciences, a researcher on the team. "The new rift produced novel environments, and the gastropods very rapidly evolved to exploit new niches."

The fossils examined in the study were collected by Stevens and her research group, which has been conducting paleobiological and geological research in the Rukwa Rift Basin in Tanzania for nearly two decades. Their research has produced the most precise age for the onset of rifting in the western branch of the East African Rift System, as well as the earliest evidence of the split between Old World monkeys and apes. Until now, the evolutionary history of invertebrate faunas in this area have barely been studied.

Previously, the Rukwa Rift Basin team has reported on the discovery of other new species to science, including dinosaurs and bizarre mammal-like crocs from older deposits in the region. It is clear that the Rukwa Rift preserves a special window into the evolution of ecosystems on the African continent, with potentially even more discoveries to come.

Source: https://phys.org

Ranking All the Kids From ‘Jurassic World’ and ‘Jurassic Park’

Thursday, June 28, 2018

Ranking All the Kids From ‘Jurassic World’ and ‘Jurassic Park’

Forget dinosaurs, the kids are why these movies succeed or fail.

The success of one of the five existing Jurassic movies is largely dependent on awesome dinosaur action, but there’s another, perhaps even more important factor: children. Each Jurassic movie from the original to the latest entry, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, has its own resident child through which the magic and awe of dinosaurs can be properly and completely appreciated. But, which Jurassic kid is the best?

To be fair, all the kids in the Jurassic movies are great, and this ranking isn’t meant to hurt anyone’s feelings or say these actors are bad people. Instead, we just wanted to figure out how the kids stack up against each other, totally independent of the movies they’re in, or the other children they’re often paired with. This list is totally subjective. All children and all dinosaurs are wonderful and perfect.

7. Zach from Jurassic World

Nick Robinson aka Zach from 'Jurassic World'.

Zach is the older brother of Gray in Jurassic World. His big claim to fame in this movie is that he stops flirting for one second to pay attention to his little brother while they’re on vacation. Zach is fine, and correctly love Chris Pratt’s raptor motorcycle gang, but because he doesn’t love dinosaurs all that much, he’s not going to gain the top spot on this list.

6. Eric from Jurassic Park III

Trevor Morgan in Jurassic Park III

Eric gets points for surviving on Isla Sonar by himself, and probably stealing urine from a Tyrannosaurus rex, but because he’s in the single worst Jurassic movie of them all, he can’t possibly hope to win the best Jurassic kid of all time award. Sorry, Eric!

5. Gray from Jurassic World

Jurassic World. Gray outside looking at camera with fluffy hair

The younger boy in Jurassic World is actually great. His enthusiasm for dinosaurs reminded a lot of older viewers of how they felt when the first movie came out. Plus, he’s not a recreation of Tim from the first movie, instead, Gray feels like a genuine and normal dinosaur fan.

4. Tim from Jurassic Park

Tim Murphy

Tim is a classic dinosaur nerd and gets massive points for name-dropping everyone from paleontologist Bob Bakker to Omni magazine. Still, however classic, Tim’s status of being in the first Jurassic Park movie isn’t enough to guarantee a win as the best Jurassic kid ever. But to his credit, Tim did survive getting electrocuted! Pretty dope.

3. Kelly from The Lost World: Jurassic Park

The Lost World: Jurassic Park

An underdog! In the second Jurassic film ever, we learn that Dr. Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) had a daughter from a relationship that didn’t work out. Kelly is also a gymnast and uses her skills to defeat a Velociraptor. For the record, this is the only child in the Jurassic movies who FIGHTS dinosaurs and wins.

2. Maisie from Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Isabella Sermon in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)

The newest Jurassic kid is one of the best ever. Not only is Maisie a secret clone of herself, but she also is single-handedly responsible for letting dinosaurs loose in North America. Also, all the other Jurassic kids had to face dinosaurs in a dinosaur-like environment, but Maisie had to deal with a dino-attack in her own bedroom. Other than Kelly, she’s easily one of the toughest kids in this movie series.

1. Lex From Jurassic Park

Ariana Richards as Lex Murphy in Jurassic Park

She’s a vegetarian. She’s a hacker. She fixed the computer systems of the original Jurassic Park as a tween. The older sister in the first Jurassic Park is still the greatest Jurassic kid of them all!

Source: www.fatherly.com

India Get Its First Robotic Dinosaur Gallery: 3 Places To See Dinosaur Remains In India

Tuesday, October 30, 2018

The country's first gallery on robotic dinosaurs was opened to the public in the Pushpa Gujral Science City, Kapurthala on October 27, 2018. (Image: Facebook/PushpaGujralScienceCity)

The country's first gallery on robotic dinosaurs was opened to the public at the Pushpa Gujral Science City, Kapurthala on October 27, 2018.

The country's first gallery on robotic dinosaurs was opened to the public at the Pushpa Gujral Science City, Kapurthala on October 27, 2018.

A joint initiative of the union and state governments, the science city is the biggest project of its kind in northern India and has been set up in 72 acres of land in the heart of Punjab, on Jalandhar-Kapurthala road.

A total of seven moving dinosaurs, made from robust steel and silica gel with durable motors, have been added to the already existing 46 exhibits of the extinct species, Deputy Commissioner of Kapurthala Mohd Tayyab said after inaugurating the gallery.

Built at a cost of Rs 1.50 crore, the gallery with its robotic dinosaurs as well as manually operated ones will take the visitors million of years back to the period when dinosaurs roamed the earth freely, adding to the overall entertainment quotient, said Tayyab.

India has some of the world's largest fossil excavation sites and hatcheries.

Let's take a look at the places where you can see dinosaur remains

1. Indroda Dinosaur and Fossil Park

Indroda Dinosaur and Fossil Park is considered to be the second largest hatchery of dinosaur eggs in the world.(Image: gujarattourism)

  • Indroda Dinosaur and Fossil Park is a precious treasure spread over an area of about 400 hectares on either bank of Sabarmati river in Gandhinagar, the capital of Gujarat

  • It is considered to be the second largest hatchery of dinosaur eggs in the world

  • Regarded as India's Jurrasic Park, it is run by the Gujarat Ecological Education and Research Foundation (GEER)

  • It also has a Wilderness Park which is home to innumerable species of birds, reptiles, hundreds of nilgais, langurs and peafowls in its vast forest

2. Wadadham Fossils Park

Dinosaurs Statue in Wadadham Fossil Park, Maharashtra.(Image: gadchiroli.gov.in)

  • The Wadadam Fossil Park is situated in Gadchiroli District of Maharashtra State

  • Sironcha is among the five places in the country where dinosaur fossils have been found in large numbers

  • A full-fledged skeleton of a dinosaur was found in 1959 near the Godavari basin in Kothapalli-Pochampally village that borders Telangana

  • The fossil has since then been kept in the museum of Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) in Kolkata

  • This Jurassic period site houses the fossils of flora that existed when sauropods, the giant vegetarian dinosaurs, walked this stretch of the Indian subcontinent

  • This has given the park the unique distinction of being the only dinosaur site in the Indian subcontinent to have fossils of both flora and fauna from that time

  • A team of paleontologists, including international dinosaur experts in February this year discovered over 70 bones of dinosaurs of Jurassic age at Kotampalli, 400km from Sironcha

3. Dinosaur Fossil Park

Raioli Dinosaur Fossil Excavation Site contains fossilized eggs, bones and other remains of the Dinosaurs.

  • Situated in the Kheda district of the West Indian state of Gujarat, Balasinor is a small town

  • Balasinor Fossil Park is located in Raioli village. Developed by the Government Tourism, Raioli Dinosaur Fossil Excavation Site contains fossilized eggs, bones and other remains of the dinosaurs

  • In this fossil park, the remains of around 13 species of dinosaurs have also been found

  • Raioli in Balasinor is the third largest dinosaur hatchery in the world

  • The site is also where Rajasaurus narmadensis, the first species of dinosaur unique to India, was identified in 2003.

Source: www.indiatoday.in

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