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TRT World talks to Serdar Mayda, paleontologist, about the Mastodon remains that were recently unearthed in Canakkale’s Ezine district.

Serdar Mayda has a background in Geology Engineering, with a master’s degree in Paleontology and a doctorate in Biology. He has been working on vertebrate paleontology for the past twenty years.

According to Mayda, the remains were found by a group of fishermen in Canakkale’s Ezine district, on the shores of Yenikoy. Shortly thereafter, the fossilised samples were taken to Canakkale Troya Museum with the leadership of Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University’s (COMU) Engineering Faculty Geology instructor, Sevinc Kapan.

“The remains belong to a tusked mammal (Proboscidea) that lived about nine million years before our time and two different animals. These fossils consist of a semi-adult animal molar tooth and a baby tooth belonging  to a young animal,” Mayda tells TRT World in an email.

“In light of the morphological and biometric data the teeth present, I can say that the remains belong to what appears in the literature as the ‘shovel-tusk elephant’ or the ‘Mastodon’ grandincisivus that lived during the early stages of the late Miocene Era in Southeast Europe, Anatolia, the Middle East and Iran,” he adds.

This species is an ancestor of modern elephants, and occupies a controversial systematic position. It is a rare species, found in fossil beds in small numbers in the last 80 years in Turkey in Tekirdag, Enez, Istanbul - Kucukcekmece and Rami areas.

“The animals weighed more than five tonnes and their dimensions were close to African elephants. For example, a significant difference to other findings in Turkey,” Mayda says, “is that the remains in Yenikoy are much larger than all other samples of this species.”

“Paleontology, to give a short description” Mayda tells TRT World, “is the branch of science exploring organisms who lived in the past with the help of fossils. Fossils hold a mirror to the past.”

“A fossil gives clear clues to the approximate body form of the animal because it is a preserved version of the organism’s outer and/or inner skeletal structure,” he adds. “These forms also help us discern the close family ties of the fossil organism.”

“Turkey was a crossroads country in the Tertiary Period between Europe, Asia and Africa,” Mayda writes. “It was on the migratory path of mammals, as well as being a big geographical province that allowed many endemic fauna to evolve.”

According to Mayda, there are vertebrate fossils going back 200 million years, and mammal fossils going back 55 million years. Meanwhile, invertebrate fossils go back 500 million years. “Our country is one of the important countries in Europe based on fossil beds.”
Mayda says that every year, for the last forty years, there has been paleontological surface research and many excavations carried out with the oversight of the ministry [of Culture and Tourism],“which is why Turkey has a very rich fossil inventory. In these excavations, every year there are very special remains dug up belonging to very special fossils.”

“This fossil ‘Mastodon’ and also in light of other fossil species from the area we can say that nine million yeas ago on both shores of Canakkale there was a subtropical climate and a lush forest covering.”

Source: www.trtworld.com/

A new re-examination of fossil material housed in the Sedgwick Museum of Cambridge and the Booth Museum at Brighton has revealed the fossilized jaw fragments from a new Cretaceous period azhdarchid pterosaur previously identified as shark fin spines and fish jaws.

Roy Smith, a PhD student at the University of Portsmouth, made the discovery while he was examining the fish fossils collected from the West Melbury Marly Chalk Formation about a century ago.

The fossils were actually fragments of jaws of toothless pterosaurs, which do indeed resemble shark fin spines, but there are many subtle differences that allow them to be distinguished.

“One such feature is tiny little holes where nerves come to the surface and are used for sensitive feeding by the pterosaurs,” Smith said.

“Shark fin spines do not have these, but the early paleontologists clearly missed these features.”

Two of the specimens analyzed by Smith and his colleagues can be identified as a pterosaur called Ornithostoma sedgwicki, but one additional specimen is clearly distinct and represents a new species in the pterosaur clade Azhdarchoidea.

“Unfortunately, this specimen is too fragmentary to be the basis for naming the new species,” Smith said.

“It is doubtful if any more remains of this pterosaur will be discovered, as there are no longer any exposures of the rock from which the fossils came.”

“The little bit of beak is tantalizing in that it is small, and simply differs from Ornithostoma in subtle ways, perhaps in the way that a great white egret might differ from a heron,” said University of Portsmouth’s Professor Dave Martill, co-author of the study.

“Likely the differences in life would have been more to do with color, call and behavior than in the skeleton.”

“Pterosaurs with these types of beaks are better known at the time period from North Africa, so it would be reasonable to assume a likeness to the North African Alanqa.”

“This is extremely exciting to have discovered this mystery pterosaur right here in the UK.”

“This find is significant because it adds to our knowledge of these ancient and fascinating flying prehistoric reptiles, but also demonstrates that such discoveries can be made, simply by re-examining material in old collections.”

The study appears in the Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association.

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Roy E. Smith et al. Edentulous pterosaurs from the Cambridge Greensand (Cretaceous) of eastern England with a review of Ornithostoma Seeley, 1871. Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association, published online November 6, 2020; doi: 10.1016/j.pgeola.2020.10.004

Source: www.sci-news.com/

Paleontologists seek the secrets of dinosaur sexes. They're making progress figuring out how male and female dinosaurs differed.

How do you sex a dinosaur? The answer isn’t to be found in the pages of books like Ravished by the Triceratops or Chuck’s Dinosaur Tinglers. Not to mention that the fossil record has, so far, been silent on the mechanics of dinosaur reproduction. What paleontologists are asking is how we can distinguish dinosaur sexes from each other and what those biological basics might tell us about the “terrible lizards.”

Paleontologists have been trying to identify female and male dinosaurs for decades. Experts have proposed all sorts of tell-tale signs, from ornamentation on the skull to the spacing and angle of splint-like bones beneath the tail. What researchers want are signs of sexual dimorphism, or traits that can distinguish one sex from another.

Dinosaur Sexes

Sexual dimorphism can take many forms. Sometimes it’s a matter of size, with one sex being larger and another being smaller. Other times the giveaway is ornamentation — brighter colors, more ornate feathers or other features helpful for display.

But when paleontologists look at non-avian dinosaurs, or all dinosaurs other than birds, the bulk of the record is bones. On top of that, most dinosaur skeletons are incomplete and are scattered through space and time. Even though Tyrannosaurus rex, for example, is known from more than 50 skeletons, those fossils have been found from Saskatchewan to New Mexico in rocks spanning two million years. That’s far from a population-level perspective needed to pick out any sex-based basics.

Read more: How Did Dinosaurs Have Sex?

For a time, it seemed that non-avian dinosaurs didn’t show sexual dimorphism. No single case could be confirmed. That seemed strange, especially because many modern birds and reptiles show sex-based differences. “Does this mean that dinosaurs were biologically unique among vertebrates,” asks Field Museum paleontologist Evan Saitta, “or that something is going on within the community of dinosaur researchers about how we approach this topic?” 

The answer is starting to come into view, and it has more to do with the process of science than the animals themselves. “Sometimes there’s a country mile between what we know and what we can say,” says paleontologist Lisa Buckley. Dinosaurs probably were sexually dimorphic, like many modern animals, but the question remains of how to reliably detect those differences.

A 'Gender' Reveal

The discovery that some dinosaurs have bone tissues related to reproduction has been a major help. In 2013, researchers threw a gender reveal party for a Cretaceous bird called Confuciusornis sanctus that flew over the heads of other dinosaurs over 120 million years ago. Paleontologists have found hundreds of specimens of this crow-sized bird, but not all of them look alike. Some specimens have long, streamer-like feathers extending from the tail; others don’t. And, as it turns out, that trait is a sex-based difference. One of the fossils without tail streamers had a special tissue inside its skeleton called medullary bone that only forms when female dinosaurs were laying eggs. That means the Confuciusornis without the streamers are females and the ones with the long feathers are males. That tracks with many modern birds, where males are sometimes more ornate and colorful than females.

But Confuciusornis is an avian dinosaur, known from dozens and dozens of fossils. What about all of our favorite non-avian dinosaurs, like Stegosaurus and Apatosaurus?

Clues like bone tissue related to egg-laying, or even finding eggs still inside dinosaurs, are going to be important to solving the mystery. The way forward, says Canadian Museum of Nature paleontologist Jordan Mallon, is tying reproductive clues to other obvious traits in the rest of a dinosaur’s body. If members of a horned dinosaur species have different horn shapes, and a particular horn shape is tied to dinosaur individuals that have egg-laying tissues, that relationship can reveal which dinosaur sex is which.

The problem is that eggs and medullary bones only identify gravid female dinosaurs. Detecting male dinosaurs or non-reproducing females is much more challenging. Not to mention that dimorphism isn’t necessarily stark. “Extreme magnitudes of dimorphism are not necessarily common,” Saitta says, pointing to living birds as an example. In birds that show sexual dimorphism in body size, there’s often only about a 10 percent difference in average body mass. That would be difficult to detect in the fossil record, especially given that nature is variable and any given male or female might be larger or smaller than average.

Being able to pull out these differences hinges upon how fossils are analyzed and compared. Some number crunching with statistics, for example, can measure how much dinosaurs differ from each other and estimate the likelihood that those differences are due to sex. Working with relatively small sample sizes, the method can help identify which dinosaurs probably had noticeable sexual differences to those that don’t seem to show much at all in their skeletons.

Mallon notes that the approach might over-detect dimorphism, but that the work “shows promise” and will help move the discussion forward. And, given that the fossil record has a habit of surprising researchers, new finds might add new information about what to look for. Now that paleontologists can detect the colors of some feathered dinosaurs, for example, they can start to dig into whether some dinosaur species had sexes that were skeletally identical but wore different color patterns.

Male and Female Dinos

All of this effort isn’t just about labeling dinosaurs by sex, though. Unlocking this aspect of dinosaur biology opens up many more avenues of questioning and study. “We would stand to learn a lot about dinosaur social structure,” Mallon says, as the degree to which a species displays sexual dimorphism is often related to whether the animals are more social or solitary. It might also be possible to tell whether one of the sexes fought more — like how tyrannosaurs bit each other on the face and Triceratops locked horns — or which dinosaurs parents cared for their eggs.

Comparing ancient dinosaurs to their modern counterparts would be critical. “It’s not a one-size-fits-all scenario,” Buckley notes, especially given that some birds — like spotted sandpipers — have boldly-colored females and males that sit on the nest. All the same, Buckley notes, “Sexual dimorphism, whether it’s flashy or cryptic, is a huge part of the lives of present-day birds.” The same was true for non-avian dinosaurs, especially as each generation added to an evolutionary epic stretching over 235 million years. As Mallon puts it, “Knowing the sexes would arguably open up a whole new field in a way that we previously didn’t think was possible.”

Source: www.discovermagazine.com/

Originally released in 2018, Frontier’s Jurassic World Evolution combined a park-building sim with the thrill of Jurassic Park. Now, Jurassic World Evolution: Complete Edition brings the full experience to Nintendo Switch.

Jurassic World Evolution: Complete Edition puts a dinosaur-themed park at your fingertips, placing you in control of just about every element. But more difficult than simply placing attractions and waiting for visitors to show up, you also need to create the dinosaurs. That means sending out teams on expeditions, recovering fossils, then extracting DNA from them in the lab.

There’s always a chance it doesn’t work, but when it does, you’ve got a brand new prehistoric beastie to take care of. That means ensuring it has food, water and plenty of space to roam around. It’s a living creature of course, which means it might get sick – so you’ll need rangers on hand to administer medicine if needs be. Oh, and if you have aggressive-type dinos, don’t be surprised if they end up killing some of your more placid species. You’ll need a helicopter team to airlift those dead bodies out of there. Don’t want your guests seeing mangled carcasses now, do you?

And, of course, alongside taking care of dinosaurs, you also have a theme park and the general public to entertain. You’ll need shops, restaurants, hotels, attractions, viewing windows – the whole shebang. Everything you place needs wiring up to an energy network too, so that means power plants and electricity cables. Oh, and you need to watch your budget and make sure you’re not spending more than you’re earning.

So, running a park in Jurassic World Evolution is no picnic, then. You need to be aware of multiple elements at all times. But playing in the game’s campaign mode, you’ll be eased into every element at a steady pace. A series of missions will introduce key factors of the game, helping you learn the ropes. Missions and tutorials are excellently delivered too; there’s a host of voices and familiar characters – including Dr. Ian Malcolm – making for a seriously premium-feeling experience.

This Switch version is of course Jurassic World Evolution: Complete Edition, which bundles all existing DLC. Along with the base game, you get instant access to Claire’s Sanctuary and Return to Jurassic Park. These can be played straight away, but if you’re new to Jurassic World Evolution, the game warns you that they’re targeted at more experienced players. There’s also Secrets of Dr. Wu included, which is an extra storyline embedded within the main campaign.

Claire’s Sanctuary DLC sees you work alongside Jurassic World’s Claire Dearing on a mission to save dinosaurs from Isla Nublar. Return to Jurassic Park takes place after the events of the 1993 film, where you’re working alongside Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler and Ian Malcolm to rebuild the park. It’s voiced by the original cast, too.

As you’d expect from Nintendo Switch, Jurassic World Evolution: Complete Edition takes some serious visual hits. It runs at a low resolution, so don’t expect the same graphical fidelity you’ve experienced on PC or home console. But the important thing is it runs incredibly smoothly. It’s a rather demanding game, with lots of menus and a park that can grow exponentially – but Nintendo’s handheld handles it valiantly. It’s perhaps not the best way to play, but the freedom to play on the go, or wherever in the house you want to, is definitely a positive. As is the inclusion of all DLC.

Needless to say, then, if you’ve a fondness for park-building games and you’re a lover of Jurassic Park, Jurassic World Evolution is a must-play. And if Nintendo Switch is your format of choice, the Complete Edition makes for an excellent investment. The three DLC packs add in a lot of extra content, making the game bigger and better than ever.

Source: www.gamespew.com/

Jurassic World Evolution has always suffered from repetitive gameplay and shallow simulation mechanics, but the Switch version has poor graphics too.

When developer Frontier Developments originally released its simulation game Jurassic World Evolution back in 2018 the reception was decidedly mixed. This was for good reason, as the simulation aspects of the game are repetitive and shallow and Jurassic World Evolution doesn't do enough to help players understand its mechanics. The experience has now made its way to Nintendo Switch and despite coming with all of Jurassic World's DLC, this version of the game might possibly be its worst iteration yet due to some truly shaky graphics.

The idea behind Jurassic World Evolution sees the player stepping in as the new park manager for Jurassic Park, managing all aspects of the experience. The player is tasked with dispatching research teams to discover new dinosaurs, ensuring that park-goers have an exciting time, and keeping the park as safe as possible for everyone involved. Jurassic World Evolution is similar to other park simulation games like Planet Coaster. Players must build different buildings that will either be tasked with completing research, housing dinosaurs, or keeping guests entertained.

The biggest attraction and money earner in Jurassic World Evolution are the dinosaurs, and they are by far the best aspect of the game. There are almost 70 different dinosaurs to unlock and add to the park and each one has specific needs like food, socialization, and entertainment that must be met to keep them healthy. One of the more interesting parts of the game is that players are able to acquire genetic traits to add to their dinosaurs in order to increase different stats. The player may want a dinosaur with a heartier constitution or maybe they want one that is much stronger than it should be. Interfering with dinosaur DNA helps make the player truly feel like they are running Jurassic Park in all of its movie glory.

While it may be fun to experiment with different dinosaurs in Jurassic World Evolution, acquiring them is a boring process. In order to get new dinosaurs the player has to first send a research team out to collect fossils, wait several minutes, select which fossils to process when they get back, wait a few more minutes, and then hope that those fossils give them something new. It's a repetitive process, and most of the time there isn't much to do while waiting for these fossils to be done processing.

This is actually an issue with most of the Jurassic World Evolution's mechanics. Everything that the player does has a short timer on it that is there for seemingly no other reason than to pad the length of Jurassic World Evolution. Building attractions, creating dinosaurs, processing fossils, and just about all other actions come with a two- or three-minute timer. This is so bad in fact that Jurassic World Evolution tends to feel like a mobile game port - just without the ability to pay to speed things up.

While all of these issues were present in the original release of Jurassic World Evolution, the Nintendo Switch port features another major problem. Jurassic World Evolution is ugly on Nintendo Switch when compared to other versions of the game. No matter how close the camera is to an object or dinosaur it is always blurry, which is a shame because one of the more fun points of Jurassic World Evolution is watching the dinosaurs interact with each other and their environment.

Jurassic World Evolution was never a perfect game, but there were some fans of the Jurassic Park franchise that felt it was worth their time. Despite the shallow simulation aspects and repetitive tasks forced on them, many players still enjoyed creating and admiring the various dinosaurs in their park. Because of the poor graphics on the Nintendo Switch version of Jurassic World Evolution, however, there is little here to keep players entertained - and those interested in the premise are better off revisiting its previous platforms instead.

Source: https://screenrant.com/

Jurassic World Evolution places players in the position of running the park, and these mods add some fresh, new takes on the experience.

Building and designing a theme park full of dinosaurs can be a fun and challenging experience in Jurassic World Evolution. There are plenty of dinosaur species to unlock and discover, charters to complete, and tourists to please.

For players who find themselves exhausting everything the vanilla experience can offer or who simply want some additional flavor, mods are a great way to enhance the experience. There are a wealth of mods for this game, and here are some really interesting ones players should consider.

10 - Experimental Feathered Raptors

The Experimental Feathered Raptors mod by Demansia makes raptors more interesting by giving them feathers. The core body of the raptor remains unchanged, but their arms, tail, and back of their head will have clusters of feathers.

The mod doesn’t give them flight or anything chaotic, it’s simply a retexture of the raptors in-game. For some players it can be a cool peak at the evolution of these creatures. For others it gives one of the best dinosaurs in the game a unique appearance.

9 - Magma Spinosaurus

The Magma Spinosaurus mod by IndoraptorPrototype replaces the skin of the Spinosaurus with a new look. The Spinosaurus now has a fin with black, red, and golden colors to give it a magma aesthetic.

The skin on top of the dinosaur near the fin makes it look like magma is bubbling up from the creature’s back and spilling across its body. It’s a neat aesthetic that makes the Spinosaur a main attraction of the park.

8 - Environment Re-Work

The Environment Re-Work mod by DANNYBOB is a complete retexturing of every environment available in the game. According to the author of the mod the environment felt rather “dull” so they added more detail and coloring to give everything more life.

The mod adds things like Fallen Logs, changes the sand to look more like a desert, and changed rocks to actually have formations than be misshapen lumps. The result of this mod is more vibrant and colorful environments for the dinosaurs to roam around in.

7 - Jurassic Park Expansion Pack

The Jurassic Park Expansion Pack mod by Lucca is an ambitious one. The author went through and retexturing or remodeled the dinosaurs in the game to resemble their movie counterparts across the original series.

Players can now find T-Rexes that resemble Buck and Doe from Jurassic Park: The Lost World, male and female Velociraptors from Jurassic Park III, and the Triceratops from Jurassic Park among others. The mod even adds the iconic goat from the first movie.

6 - Skull Island Dinosaur Pack

The Skull Island Dinosaur Pack mod by sweetener looks to create a crossover between the Jurassic Park series and the world of King Kong. According to the mod’s lore InGen scientists collected fossils from the sunken Skull Island and are giving life to the dinosaurs found there.

Iconic monsters from Skull Island like the Vastatosaurus, basically a T-Rex with a rhino-like horn, and the raptor-like Venatosaurus all make an appearance. It’s a neat idea that’s well done in this mod pack.

5 - Godzilla 1998

The Godzilla 1998 mod by The Toho Society recreates the creature from the iconic Godzilla movie. The massive lizard with spiny black scales will immediately become the main feature of any park it’s placed in.

It is worth noting that its not nearly as large as its movie counterpart, though players could argue it’s a younger version. This mod will also replace the Indominus Rex with Godzilla so there’s a definite tradeoff. But for fans of the movie or this dark kaiju it’s a solid mod to play with.

4 - Exotic Dinosaur Pack

The Exotic Dinosaur Pack mod by sweetener replaces some of the dinosaurs in the game with more exotic variants. The strange Deinocheirus Mirificus makes an appearance with their duck-like noses. The raptor-like herbivore Effigia Okeefeae is also present.

Perhaps the most interesting of the group is the Eustreptospondylus Oxoniensis seems like an eerie cross between a T-Rex and a Raptor with spines covering it. For those that find themselves not using certain dinosaurs very much this could be a good trade.

3 - Woolly Rhino

The Woolly Rhino mod by Siaka looks to shake things up by replacing the Torosaurus, a dinosaur resembling a triceratops, with the Coelodonta, a Woolly Rhino. They don’t have any special requirements and simply act as a skin and model replacement, but they’re neat to look at.

Some players may be opposed to having hairy animals in their dinosaur park, but they certainly stand out and can be an interesting addition. They also go great with the abundance of Ice Age era mods that are out there.

2 - Baturoceratops Seradursus

The Baturoceratops Seradorsus mod by sweetner might draw some confusion from Paleontologists and dinosaur enthusiasts because it doesn’t exist in the real world. The author known for his Jurassic World Evolution mods set out to create his own dinosaur and insert it into the game.

According to sweetner the name means “Warrior Horned Face” and is a variation of the traditional Ceratopsian species. It’s a great looking dinosaur that fits in with the lore of the world. Putting this alongside other manmade species like Indominus Rex is very fitting.

1 - Expedition Charter

The Expedition Charter mod created by Kaiodenic is a great way to add more to do in the game. The mod is designed to overhaul how expeditions work making it more intuitive. For instance, rather than having fossils unlock per-species they unlock per dig site.

In addition to this tweak there are some changes to the mechanics and gameplay of Charters to make them more interesting and challenging. Players can now use The Black Market to find fossils that may have been obtained from locked dig sites for a premium.

Source: www.thegamer.com

While Sam Neill played the iconic Dr. Alan Grant in the 1993 hit Jurassic Park & its third sequel, a surprising number of actors passed on the role.

Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park is one of Sam Neill’s most recognizable characters, but a surprising list of actors turned the role down. Jurassic Park, known for its groundbreaking computer-generated and animatronic visual effects, was the highest-grossing film of 1993, and has continued to be relevant long after its original release. The blockbuster has spawned sequels, a Netflix animated series, and even theme park rides at Universal Studios. 

Grant was one of the main protagonists in Jurassic Park, and he returned in Jurassic Park III. Neill portrayed the character as highly intelligent and motivated, though somewhat grumpy, introverted, and disdainful of children. When events at Isla Nublar take a turn for the worse, he comes into a heroic role, even warming to his young companions Lex and Tim Murphy (Ariana Richards and Joseph Mazzello), but Grant, despite his keen intellect, remains a relatable everyman.

The broad range of actors also considered for the part could have given very different performances to Neill's, changing the emotional core of the movie. Considering Jurassic Park’s financial success and ongoing pop-cultural prominence, one could assume that the actors who passed on the part of Alan Grant may regret their decision. Still, each of them have led varied and successful careers, even without playing the paleontologist.

Actors Who Almost Played Alan Grant In Jurassic Park

Harrison Ford, who previously worked with Jurassic Park director Steven Spielberg on the Indiana Jones films, was the first actor approached in casting Alan Grant. Ford did not think the role was right for him, even referring to the movie’s premise as like “a trip to Mars.” A new character intended to be played by Ford was included in early drafts of Jurassic World, but the actor did not stay attached to the project long enough to see if his character made it into later rewrites. Richard Dreyfuss, another experienced Spielberg collaborator, turned down the role as well. While the Jaws star has never outright confirmed exactly why he did not accept the part, Dreyfuss has been candid about his unpleasant experience filming Close Encounters of the Third Kind and how the director pushed him to his limits. This could possibly be why he was hesitant to work with Spielberg again.

William Hurt was also considered for the role, but did not read either the Jurassic Park script or its source novel before dismissing the offer to play Grant, a seemingly inexplicable decision. Perhaps it was simply not the right time, since Hurt later acted in A.I. Artificial Intelligence, another science fiction film directed by Spielberg. Kurt Russell nearly played Grant as well, but the actor’s salary requests were higher than what Universal Studios was willing to pay. Russell, known for films like Escape from New York and Big Trouble in Little China, could have portrayed Grant as more of a traditional action hero than Neill’s brainy scientist.

Several other actors, including Dylan McDermott, Tom Sizemore, Dennis Quaid, Kevin Costner, and Tim Robbins reportedly could have taken the leading role, though it is unknown how close they got to playing Grant or why they did not end up doing so. Still, with the continuation of the Jurassic Park franchise in the Jurassic World films, any of them might still have a chance to enter the series. Jurassic World: Dominion will feature the return of Sam Neill as Alan Grant along with other members of the original film’s cast. New characters may also come into the picture, possibly leaving space for any of these talented actors to finally get a piece of dinosaur action.

Source: https://screenrant.com/

Scientists probing a prehistoric crocodile group's shadowy past have discovered a timeless truth - pore over anyone's family tree long enough, and something surprising will emerge.

Scientists probing a prehistoric crocodile group's shadowy past have discovered a timeless truth - pore over anyone's family tree long enough, and something surprising will emerge.

Despite 300 years of research, and a recent renaissance in the study of their biological make-up, the mysterious, marauding teleosauroids have remained enduringly elusive.

Scientific understanding of this distant cousin of present day long snouted gharials has been hampered by a poor grasp of their evolutionary journey - until now.

Researchers from the University of Edinburgh have identified one previously unknown species of teleosauroid and seven of its close relatives - part of a group that dominated Jurassic coastlines 190 to 120 million years ago.

Their analysis offers tantalising glimpses of how teleosauroids adapted to the momentous changes that occurred during the Jurassic period, as the earth's seas experienced many changes in temperature.

"Our study just scratches the surface of teleosauroid evolution," says study lead Dr Michela M. Johnson, of the University's School of GeoSciences. "But the findings are remarkable, raising interesting questions about their behaviour and adaptability.

"These creatures represented some of the most successful prehistoric crocodylomorphs during the Jurassic period and there is so much more to learn about them."

The study reveals that not all teleosauroids were engaged in cut and thrust lifestyles, snapping at other reptiles and fish from the seas and swamps near the coast.

Instead, they were a complex, diverse group that were able to exploit different habitats and seek out a variety of food sources. Their physical make-up is also more diverse than was previously understood, the scientists say.

Previous research had provided insights into the origins and evolution of this fossilised croc's whale-like relatives metriorhynchids, but less was known about teleosauroids.

To address this, the expert team of palaeontologists examined more than 500 fossils from more than 25 institutions around the world.

Cutting edge computer software enabled the team to glean swathes of revealing data regarding their anatomical similarities and differences, by examining the entire skeleton, teeth and bony armor, which indicated whether species were closely related or not.

This information enabled the team to create an up-to-date family tree of the teleosauroids group from which emerged two new large groups, whose anatomy, abundance, habitat, geography and feeding styles differ from one another significantly.

The first group, teleosaurids, were more flexible in terms of their habitat and feeding. The second group known as machimosaurids - which included the fearsome turtle crushers, Lemmysuchus and Machimosaurus - were more abundant and widespread.

Names given by the team to seven newly described fossils, found in both teleosaurids and machimosaurids, reflect a curious range of anatomical features - among them Proexochokefalos, meaning 'large head with big tuberosities' and Plagiophthalmosuchus, the 'side-eyed crocodile'.

There are even hints of their diverse behavioural characteristics and unique locations - Charitomenosuchus, meaning 'graceful crocodile' and Andrianavoay, the 'noble crocodile' from Madagascar.

Researchers have named the newly discovered species, Indosinosuchus kalasinensis, after the Kalasin Province in Thailand, where the fossil - now housed in Maha Sarakham University - was found.

The recognition of I. kalasinensis shows that at least two species were living in similar freshwater habitats during the Late Jurassic - an impressive feat as teleosauroids, with the exception of Machimosaurus, were becoming rare during this time.

Dr Steve Brusatte, Reader in Vertebrate Palaentology, at the School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh, said: "The same way family trees of our own ancestors and cousins tell us about our history, this huge new family tree of teleosauroids clarifies their evolution. They were some of the most diverse and important animals in the Jurassic oceans, and would have been familiar sights along the coastlines for tens of millions of years."

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The study, published in the scientific journal PeerJ, was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada, SYNTHESYS Project and Leverhulme Trust Research. The Palaeontological Association and Paleontological Society provided travel grants.

Source: www.eurekalert.org

Published in the prestigious Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Memoir Series, these landmark findings of over 350 fossils, will become a reference point for the origin of the horse, rhino, and tapir.

New research published today in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology describes a fossil family that illuminates the origin of perissodactyls - the group of mammals that includes horses, rhinos, and tapirs. It provides insights on the controversial question of where these hoofed animals evolved, concluding that they arose in or near present day India.

With more than 350 new fossils, the 15-year study pieces together a nearly complete picture of the skeletal anatomy of the Cambaytherium - an extinct cousin of perissodactyls that lived on the Indian subcontinent almost 55 million years ago.

Among the findings includes a sheep-sized animal with moderate running ability and features that were intermediate between specialized perissodactyls and their more generalized mammal forerunners. Comparing its bones with many other living and extinct mammals, revealed that Cambaytherium represents an evolutionary stage more primitive than any known perissodactyl, supporting origin for the group in or near India - before they dispersed to other continents when the land connection with Asia formed.

This new landmark article was selected for publication as a part of the prestigious Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Memoir Series, a special yearly publication that provides a more in-depth analysis of the most significant vertebrate fossils.

Cambaytherium, first described in 2005, is the most primitive member of an extinct group that branched off just before the evolution of perissodactyls, providing scientists with unique clues to the ancient origins and evolution of the group.

"The modern orders Artiodactyla (even-toed ungulates), Perissodactyla, and Primates appeared abruptly at the beginning of the Eocene around 56 million years ago across the Northern Hemisphere, but their geographic source has remained a mystery," explained Ken Rose, emeritus professor at Johns Hopkins University and lead author of the study.

Prof. Rose became intrigued by a new hypothesis suggesting that perissodactyls may have evolved in isolation in India. Then India was an island continent drifting northwards, but it later collided with the continent of Asia to form a continuous landmass.

"In 1990, Krause & Maas proposed that these orders might have evolved in India, during its northward drift from Madagascar, dispersing across the northern continents when India collided with Asia."

Armed with this new hypothesis, Rose and colleagues obtained funding from The National Geographic Society to explore India for rare fossil-bearing rocks of the correct age that might provide critical evidence for the origin of perissodactyls and other groups of mammals.

The first trip to Rajasthan in 2001 had little success, "Although we found only a few fish bones on that trip, the following year our Indian colleague, Rajendra Rana, continued exploring lignite mines to the south and came upon Vastan Mine in Gujarat."

This new mine proved much more promising. Rose added: "In 2004 our team was able to return to the mine, where our Belgian collaborator Thierry Smith found the first mammal fossils, including Cambaytherium."

Encouraged, the team returned to the mines and collected fossilized bones of Cambaytherium and many other vertebrates, despite challenging conditions.

"The heat, the constant noise and coal dust in the lignite mines were tough--basically trying to work hundreds of feet down near the bottom of open-pit lignite mines that are being actively mined 24/7," he said.

Through the cumulation of many years of challenging fieldwork, the team can finally shed light on a mammal mystery. Despite the abundance of perissodactyls in the Northern Hemisphere, Cambaytherium suggests that the group likely evolved in isolation in or near India during the Paleocene (66-56 million years ago), before dispersing to other continents when the land connection with Asia formed.

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The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Memoir series represents one of the few print publishing platforms for monographic treatments like that completed for Cambaytherium by Rose and colleagues. Particularly notable is that this work uses an extensive digital modeling (CT/μCT) approach, with the data accessible to researchers via Morphosource (http://www.morphosource.org); phylogenetic information used in the comprehensive study is accessible via Morphobank (http://www.morphobank.org).

Funding used in support of the field and laboratory research was provided by the National Geographic Society, the L.S.B Leakey Foundation, and the US National Science Foundation.

Source: www.eurekalert.org

Long neck, small head and a live weight of several tons—with this description you could have tracked down the Plateosaurus in Central Europe about 220 million years ago. Paleontologists at the University of Bonn have now described for the first time an almost complete skeleton of a juvenile Plateosaurus and discovered that it looked very similar to its parents even at a young age. The fact that Plateosaurus showed a largely fully developed morphology at an early age could have important implications for how the young animals lived and moved around. The young Plateosaurus, nicknamed "Fabian," was discovered in 2015 at the Frick fossil site in Switzerland and is exhibited in the local dinosaur museum. The study was published in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica.

In order to study the appearance of dinosaurs more closely, researchers today rely on a large number of skeletons in so-called bone beds, which are places where the animals sank into the mud in large numbers during their lifetime. However, juvenile animals had hardly been found in these until now. Researchers described fossils of still juvenile plateosaurs for the first time just a few years ago, but these were already almost as large as the adults. One possible reason: "The smaller individuals probably did not sink into the mud quite as easily and are therefore underrepresented at the bone beds," suspects study leader Prof. Martin Sander of the University of Bonn.

He and his team used comparative anatomy to examine the new skeleton, which was immediately remarkable because of its small size. "Based on the length of the vertebrae, we estimate the total length of the individual to be about 7.5 feet (2.3 meters), with a weight of about 90 to 130 lbs. (40 to 60 kilograms)," explains Darius Nau, who was allowed to examine the find for his bachelor's thesis. For comparison: Adult Plateosaurus specimens reached body lengths of 16 to 33 feet (five to ten meters) and could weigh more than four tons. Because of its small size alone, it was obvious to assume that "Fabian" was a juvenile animal. This assumption was confirmed by the fact that the bone sutures of the spinal column had not yet closed. Background: Similar to skull sutures in human babies, bone sutures only fuse over the course of life.

Young and old resembled each other anatomically and in their body proportions

Researchers found that the young dinosaur resembled its older relatives both in anatomical details, such as the pattern of the laminae on the vertebrae (bony lamellae connecting parts of the vertebrae, which are important anatomical features in many dinosaurs), and in the rough proportions of its body. "The hands and neck of the juveniles may be a little longer, the arm bones a little shorter and slimmer. But overall, the variations are relatively small compared to the variation within the species overall and also compared to other dinosaur species," stresses Nau. The juveniles of the related Mussaurus for instance were still quadrupeds after hatching, but the adults were bipeds.

"The fact that the Plateosaurus juvenile already looked so similar to the adults is all the more remarkable considering that they were ten times heavier," emphasizes paleontologist Dr. Jens Lallensack from the University of Bonn. It is however conceivable that the morphological development differed greatly from animal to animal, depending on the climatic conditions or the availability of food. Such differences are still seen in reptiles today.

The well-known descendants of Plateosaurus, the sauropods, are the subject of a current exhibition at the Zoological Research Museum Alexander Koenig in Bonn. The largest Plateosaurus skeleton ever found can be seen there.

More information: Postcranial Osteology of the First Early-Stage Juvenile Skeleton of Plateosaurus trossingensis (Norian, Frick, Switzerland). Acta Palaeontologica Polonica; DOI: 10.4202/app.00757.2020

Journal information: Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 

Provided by University of Bonn

Source: https://phys.org/