 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| . |  |
. |
'Missing link' pterosaur found in China
Paris (AFP) Oct 14, 2009 Chinese and British palaeontologists have identified a crow-sized fossil that they believe fills a key gap in our understanding of the mysterious flying reptiles known as pterosaurs. The species has been baptised Darwinopterus modularis in honour of Charles Darwin, who was born 200 years ago and 150 years ago published his ground-breaking work on evolution, "On the Origin of Species." The five palaeontologists, reporting on Wednesday in the British journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, say more than 20 fossilised skeletons of the newly-uncovered species were found in northeastern China earlier this year. The finds were unearthed from rocks dated at around 160 million years ago, which places them close to the boundary line between the Middle and Late Jurassic periods, and at least 10 million years older than the first recognised bird, Archaeopteryx. Darwinopterus appears to be intermediary between primitive, long-tailed pterosaurs -- sometimes called pterodactyls -- and their descendants, who were short-tailed, more sophisticated flyers that sometimes reached gigantic sizes. "Darwinopterus came as quite a shock to us," David Unwin of the University of Leicester, central England, said in a press release. "We had always expected a gap-filler with typically intermediate features such as a moderately elongated tail -- neither long nor short -- but the strange thing about Darwinopterus is that it has a head and neck just like that of advanced pterosaurs, while the rest of the skeleton, including a very long tail, is identical to that of primitive forms." Darwinopterus had long jaws, rows of sharp teeth and a flexible-looking neck, which suggests it may have survived on the wing by snatching small mammals or pigeon-sized feathery dinosaurs that were the forerunners of birds. "Darwinopterus" means "Darwin's wing", while "modularis" means composed of interchangeable units. The investigators, led by Junchang Lu of the Institute of Geology in Beijing, believe that pterosaurs went through bursts of evolution characterised by swift changes to groups of features. The head and neck evolved first, followed later by the body, tail, wings and legs, they contend. Share This Article With Planet Earth
Related Links Darwin Today At TerraDaily.com
Uganda ends big game hunting banKampala (AFP) Oct 13, 2009 Uganda is lifting a decades-old ban on big game hunting to boost tourism revenue and contain herds of crop-crunching elephants, buffalos and zebras, the wildlife service said Tuesday. Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) spokesperson Lillian Nsubuga said a deal had been agreed authorising a private company to sell sport hunting licenses in some areas of the east African country. "We have ... read more |
|
|
| The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2009 - SpaceDaily. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement |
del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
YahooMyWeb
Google
Facebook