fossils – आवारा मुसाफिर

Fossils of colossal snake Vasuki unearthed in Kutch mine

April 20, 2024422 Views

Fossil vertebrae unearthed in a lignite mine are the remains of one of the largest snakes that ever lived, a monster estimated at up to 49 feet (15 meters) in length - longer than a T. rex - that prowled the swamps of India around 47 million years ago. Scientists said on Thursday they have recovered 27 vertebrae from the snake, including a few still in the same position as they would have been when the limbless reptile was alive. They said the snake, which they named Vasuki indicus, would have looked like a modern-day large python and would not have been venomous. The mine is located in the Panandhro area of the Kutch district in western India's state of Gujarat. Lignite is the lowest grade of coal. Geological map of Kutch Basin showing fossil locality Fossils revealed a snake...

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Europe had different herbivorous dinosaurs to Asia and America

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September 14, 2023553 Views

Scientists have discovered a new species of small plant-eating dinosaur on the Isle of Wight in southern England (UK). The new species, Vectidromeus insularis, is the second member of the hypsilophodont family to be found on the island, suggesting that Europe had its own family of small herbivorous dinosaurs, distinct from those found in Asia and North America. Hypsilophodonts were a group of nimble, bipedal herbivores that lived around 125 million years ago. The animals lived alongside early tyrannosaurs, spinosaurs, and Iguanodon. The new fossil represents an animal about the size of a chicken but was a juvenile and may have grown much larger. An artistic impression shows Vectidromeus insularis. Photo credit: Emily Willoughby Vectidromeus is a close relative o...

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Mistaken fossil rewrites history of Indian subcontinent for second time

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February 3, 20231100 Views

A fossil turned out to be just a beehive, and the correction puts the geologic and life history of India back into contention In 2020, amid the first pandemic lockdowns, a scientific conference scheduled to take place in India never happened. But a group of geologists who were already on site decided to make the most of their time and visited the Bhimbetka Rock Shelters, a series of caves with ancient cave art near Bhopal, India. There, they spotted the fossil of Dickinsonia¸ a flat, elongated and primitive animal from before complex animals evolved. It marked the first-ever discovery of Dickinsonia in India. An object that at first looked like a fossil of the primitive animal Dickinsonia (left) quickly started decaying and peeling off the rock (right), a sign it was something ...

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Mystery Nevada fossil site could be ancient maternity ward

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December 21, 2022147 Views

Scientists have uncovered new clues about a curious fossil site in Nevada, a graveyard for dozens of giant marine reptiles. Instead of the site of a massive die-off as suspected, it might have been an ancient maternity ward where the creatures came to give birth. The site is famous for its fossils from giant ichthyosaurs — reptiles that dominated the ancient seas and could grow up to the size of a school bus. The creatures — the name means fish lizard — were underwater predators with large paddle-shaped flippers and long jaws full of teeth. This illustration provided by the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in December 2022 depicts a group of adult and newly born Triassic shonisaurus ichthyosaurs. (Gabriel Ugueto/NMNH via AP) Since the ichthyosaur bones in Nevada wer...

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Fossils of car-sized dinosaur-era sea turtle unearthed in Spain

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November 19, 2022506 Views

Plying the subtropical seas that washed the coasts of the archipelago that made up Europe 83 million years ago was one of the largest turtles on record, a reptile the size of a small car - a Mini Cooper to be precise - that braved dangerous waters. Researchers on Thursday described remains discovered in northeastern Spain of a turtle named Leviathanochelys aenigmatica that was about 12 feet (3.7 meters) long, weighed a bit under two tons and lived during the Cretaceous Period - the final chapter in the age of dinosaurs. It is Europe's biggest-known turtle. It dwarfed today's largest turtle - the leatherback, which can reach 7 feet (2 meters) long and is known for marathon marine migrations. Leviathanochelys nearly matched the largest turtle on record - Archelon, which lived roughly ...

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Ancient massive ‘Dragon of Death’ flying reptile dug up in Argentina

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May 24, 2022538 Views

Argentine scientists discovered a new species of a huge flying reptile dubbed "The Dragon of Death" that lived 86 millions of years ago alongside dinosaurs, in a find shedding fresh insight on a predator whose body was as long as a yellow school bus. The new specimen of ancient flying reptile, or pterosaur, measured around 30 feet (9 meters) long and researchers say it predated birds as among the first creatures on Earth to use wings to hunt its prey from prehistoric skies. A palaeontologist works on excavation of bones and fossils that belonged to a newly discovered species of pterosaurs, Thanatosdrakon Amaru, in Aguada del Padrillo, Mendoza, Argentina August 9, 2012. Leonardo Ortiz David - Universidad de Cuyo/Handout via REUTERS The team of paleontologists discovered the fossil...

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Researchers discover overlooked Jurassic Park of lizards

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May 6, 2022742 Views

New research published in eLife by researchers from the Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont (ICP) and the University of Bristol (UB) moves back the moment of the radiation of squamates ―the group of reptiles that includes lizards, snakes and worm lizards― to the Jurassic, a long time before current estimates. The Squamata is the largest order of reptiles, including lizards, snakes and worm lizards. Squamates are all cold-blooded, and their skins are covered by horny scales. They are key parts of modern terrestrial faunas, especially in warmer climates, with an astonishing diversity of more than 10,000 species. However, understanding the evolutionary paths that forged their success are still poorly understood. There is consensus that all the main squamate groups had...

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New fossil birds discovered near China’s Great Wall – one had a movable, sensitive “chin”

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February 20, 2022665 Views

Approximately 80 miles from the westernmost reach of China’s Great Wall, paleontologists found relics of an even more ancient world. Over the last two decades, teams of researchers unearthed more than 100 specimens of fossil birds that lived approximately 120 million years ago, during the time of the dinosaurs. However, many of these fossils have proved difficult to identify: they’re incomplete and sometimes badly crushed. In a new paper published in the Journal of Systematics and Evolution, researchers examined six of these fossils and identified two new species. And as a fun side note, one of those new species had a movable bony appendage at the tip of its lower jaw that may have helped the bird root for food. “It was a long, painstaking process teasing out what these things were,” s...

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Fossils excavated in the 1960s add missing link to crocodile evolution

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February 10, 2022540 Views

A set of Triassic archosaur fossils, excavated in the 1960s in Tanzania, have been formally recognised as a distinct species, representing one of the earliest-known members of the crocodile evolutionary lineage. Researchers at the University of Birmingham, the Natural History Museum and Virginia Tech University have named the animal Mambawakale ruhuhu. It is among the last to be studied of a collection of fossils dug up nearly 60 years ago from the Manda Beds, a geological formation in southern Tanzania. Life reconstruction of Mambawakale ruhuhu by Gabriel Ugueto, who retains the copyright. Only the skull, mandible and a few postcranial elements are known for Mambawakale ruhuhu, so the rest of the body, tail and limbs are reconstructed based on the anatomy of hypothesized close rela...

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A dinosaur trove discovered in Italy

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December 6, 20211043 Views

Finding rewrites the history, geography, and evolution of the ancient Mediterranean area Italy is not exactly renown for dinosaurs. In comparison to its excellent artistic and archaeological heritage, dinosaur fossils are very rare. Not surprisingly, the discovery of the first isolated remains from these animals, in the early 1990s, generated quite an excitement, but were shortly after considered nothing more than an exception to a general rule. During the reign of dinosaurs, between 230 and 66 million years ago, the ancient Mediterranean area would have been hard to map, formed by countless small islands far from all major mainlands – Europe, Africa, and Asia – unsuitable to sustain large animals like the dinosaurs. Or so we believed. Antonio - Fossil and a sculpture by Enrico Rizz...