Rotem Rusak
Wed, December 8, 2021
‘Tis the season for celebration. And all creatures, great and small, should get to partake in the festivities. And one very great one has got out their Jurassic jumper, just in time for the holidays. London’s Natural History Museum has dressed its animatronic Tyrannosaurus Rex in its very own Christmas sweater.
British Christmas Jumpers
The museum shares:
Our animatronic T. rex is getting into the Christmas spirit. It’s been kitted out in its very own theropod-size seasonal sweater, made from 100% recycled materials.
A joyous dino, who also cares about the environment? We 100 percent needed this holiday cheer. The sweater, of course, had to be custom-made. Because how else would the King of the Dinosaurs get his little arms in? The sweater was designed by the brand British Christmas Jumpers. And the good news is you can match your favorite sweater-clad dinosaur. Just pre-order an adult-sized version of the sweater from the Natural History Museum’s online shop. Happily, the sweater also comes in children’s sizes.
Museum of Natural History
Here’s more about the design:
The navy, red, green, and white pattern features snowflakes, fir trees – and everyone’s favourite dinosaurs: Triceratops, Stegosaurus, T. rex and Diplodocus. Even the Museum’s famous Hans Sloane nautilus shell appears along the hem and cuffs.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. Doesn’t the T. Rex eat Triceratops? Well, it did. But the good news is, it’s Christmas, and everyone has called a cease-fire. That’s how this magical season works, right? And who doesn’t love a little bit of dark humor in with the holidays?
Now, all we need is to get the T.Rex its very own Christmas tree. And invite it to sing some Christmas carols. Like those classics, Growling Night and Jingle Bell Mesozoic Rock. But let’s leave Christmas stars, or any other mentions of outer space out of it. We wouldn’t want our Christmas sweater-wearing T. rex, or any of his dinosaur friends, to have a blue Christmas.
The post Deck the T. Rex With Christmas Sweaters, Fa La La La La appeared first on Nerdist.
Mindy Weisberger
Around 155 million years ago in what is now Wyoming, a crocodile relative clamped its jaws around a thrashing animal and dragged it below the water's surface, and the ancient reptile could still breathe comfortably as its prey slowly drowned.
That's because the croc had specialized structures that prevented water from flowing through its mouth and into its airway. This feature is known in modern crocodilians — crocodiles and their close relatives — and scientists recently identified the same mechanism in a newly described species of croc cousin that lived during the Jurassic period (201.3 million to 145 million years ago).
This is the earliest evidence of crocodilian adaptations for submerging their heads (and prey) underwater while still being able to breathe through nostrils on top of their snouts; this ability is an important part of the group's deadly feeding habits today, and may have helped crocodilians survive the Cretaceous extinction that wiped out most of the dinosaurs.
Related: Crocs: Ancient predators in a modern world (photos)
Scientists named the newfound species Amphicotylus milesi, and it belongs to a group of early crocodile relatives called goniopholidids, which lived in the Northern Hemisphere from the Jurassic through the early Cretaceous period (145 million to 66 million years ago) and had a body plan suggestive of a semiaquatic lifestyle.
The near-intact skeleton, discovered in 1993 in Wyoming's East Camarasaurus Quarry, is the most complete goniopholidid fossil ever found. When it was alive, the reptile would have measured about 7.5 feet (2.3 meters) long and weighed up to 500 pounds (227 kilograms), study co-author Michael J. Ryan, an adjunct research professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at Carleton University in Ontario, told Live Science in an email.
A. milesi also has one of the biggest known skulls among this group of early crocs, measuring 17 inches (43 centimeters) long, and the broad, elongated snout accounts for about 60% of the skull length, the scientists reported Dec. 8 in the journal Royal Society Open Science. However, unfused sutures in some of the bones hint that the reptile was a youngster that was still growing, according to the study.
"I believe that it was approximately adult size, but reptiles like this would have had indeterminate growth — continuing to grow through their lives, but slowing down after maturity," Ryan said. "A conservative estimate would be that an 'adult' could have been half again as long and heavy," measuring nearly 12 feet long (3.7 m) and weighing up to 750 pounds (340 kg), he added.
Breathe deep
Modern crocodilians — crocodiles, alligators, caimans and gharials — can breathe through their mouths and through nostrils on top of their snouts. The nostrils have protective valves at the openings, and air travels through canals and down the back of the throat, where it passes through another valve, according to the IUCN-Species Survival Commission's Crocodile Specialist Group (CSG), a global network of experts involved in crocodilian conservation.
When a crocodilian basks on land, it typically breathes through its open mouth, and the palatal valve in the throat (also known as a gular flap) is open. However, when it is holding prey in the water, the crocodilian breathes through its nostrils and the flap is closed, which prevents the animal from inhaling water through its open mouth, according to the CSG. When this flap isn't in use, it rests in the underside of the throat, and a network of muscles lifts the flap into place to block the flow of water.
Related: Photos: Early dinosaur cousin looked like a croc
As the researchers examined the size, shape and curvature of skull structures in A. milesi, they found similarities to certain features in modern crocodiles with the gular flap, such as an extension in the roof of the mouth toward the back of the throat and a shortened bone called the ceratobranchial, which lies in the throat and supports the tongue. This combination of anatomical features in A. milesi suggests that this ancient croc relative also had a flap that would have kept it from inhaling water while drowning its prey, so long as it kept its nostrils above the water, the study authors reported.
Other crocodilian relatives dating to the late Jurassic and early Cretaceous periods have similar modifications, "suggesting that they, too, may have had a similar ability," Ryan said. "But this combination of anatomical features is unique to Amphicotylus."
Adaptations for underwater dining could help to explain why the ancestors of modern crocodiles were able to weather the mass extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous period while their nonavian dinosaur contemporaries died out, Ryan explained.
"The features now recognized in Amphicotylus allowing for a feeding strategy that nonavian dinosaurs did not have might have contributed to their survival of the Cretaceous extinction — by staying and feeding in the water," Ryan said.
Originally published on Live Science
Researchers discover how a prehistoric creature the size of a giraffe was able to fly
Imagine a giraffe, but with a 40-foot wingspan and a massive beak.
That was the Quetzalcoatlus, a type of pterosaur that dominated the skies millions of years ago. Neither a bird nor a dinosaur, the pterosaur was around for millions of years alongside the likes of the Tyrannosaurus rex and is one of the most recognizable creatures from prehistoric times.
However, not much is known about the giant Quetzalcoatlus. It is regarded as the biggest flying creature to ever exist, but there is skepticism as to whether it did fly, and if it did, how it got in the air.
Now, a group of researchers say they have figured out the Quetzalcoatlus did in fact fly and have learned how it did so by discovering two new types of pterosaurs. Their findings were published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology on Wednesday.
Matthew Brown, director of the University of Texas at Austin’s Vertebrate Paleontology Collections and co-author of the study, told USA TODAY the findings are 50 years worth of research put together. He added it took so long to understand how the species functions because their bones are as thick as a "potato chip," so it required more time to carefully inspect them.
There are few fossils of the Quetzalcoatlus, but Brown said there were hundreds of bones for a smaller type of pterosaur, which instead had a wingspan of 18 to 20 feet. From there, the team brought in an aerospace engineer and biomechanic.
"You kind of have to shift your mindset to think about these as living, breathing animals and not just dead skeletons sitting in a drawer," Brown said. "Part of that is looking at modern animals that are alive today that have similar body types."
Together, the team determined that these animals leaped over 8 feet into the air in order to take flight.
"(The team) applied a lot of the aerospace knowledge to understanding how something like airfoil works and how much speed you need to generate lift," Brown said. "There are a couple of models that have been proposed, but the one that that is more attractive is that they're jumping up in the air and then flapping their wings."
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Kevin Padian, co-author of the study and an emeritus professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley, added the creatures had large breastbones, so they were "terrific flyers." With its long jaws, the Quetzalcoatlus often ate crabs, worms and clams from rivers and lakes.
Brown said this analysis will hopefully lead to being able to connect all the different types of pterosaurs; there have been an estimated 100 types discovered. The biggest goal is to be able to find a complete skeleton of a Quetzalcoatlus, but for now, Brown is grateful for the team's work.
"It's exciting working with these materials," he said. "This was an early Christmas for us."
Follow Jordan Mendoza on Twitter: @jordan_mendoza5.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: A giant, giraffe-sized pterosaur leaped in the air to fly, study says
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