They recently found 17 teeth from a carcharadontosaur in South America (they have special 'wrinkles' on their teeth so they are easy to identify) but teeth is all they found. It's not really that important they found teeth, it's were they found them, or rather when. It was thought that these carcharadontosaurs died out 20 million years before the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs. But these teeth seem to show that they (comprising, animals like Giganotosaurus, Mapusaurus, and Carcharadontosaurus) made it to the end of the Cretaceous. Cool! So I drew this a few weeks ago, it's ENTIRELY speculative since it's based on 17 teeth but I used it's close relatives to make the rest up. In other dinosaur news another large meet eater was found in South America, Aerosteon riocoloradensis. The interesting thing about this beast, is that it appears to be a late surviving allosaur, or at least, a close relative. Allosaurus lived about 150 million years ago and this guy managed to hang on until 85 million years ago, that 65 million for the math impaired;) And it's changed very little. When you got something that works you stick with it! You will hear that this animal had air sacs and such and it's a big deal... well not really, it did have air sacs, but MOST dinosaurs had them (at least the theropods and sauropods,) even the big ones. I still need to do a drawing of it, I have one started just not finished yet. I also have another spinosaurus that I don't remember drawing, I'll post that one soon.
Best,
Brett
Man that looks awesome! New dinos eh? The late Cretaceous Allosaur is nifty, i can't wait to see or read more about it. :)
ReplyDeleteLove the drawing though, very animated!
-Erin
Bret,
ReplyDeleteHave your been watching Jurassic Fight Club? Im curious on what you think about it. My wife and I like it but feel they take too long to get to the juicy parts.
Allosaur was one of my favorite dinosaurs when I was growing up. I had know idea it was around that long, kinda like a shark; minor changes in evolution through out the millions of years.
Hope all is well this weekend.
I usually do not pay that much attention to Brett's dinosaur shows, but last night's episode of Jurassic Fight Club made me want to throw things at the TV over it's abysmally stupid statement that the ceratopsians featured were 'hard-wired' animals. NO ANIMALS THAT LIVE IN SOCIAL GROUPS ARE 'HARD-WIRED.' Social groups are highly changeable, the relationships of the animals within a group are not static. By their very nature social animals are NOT hard-wired. And can we PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE STOP THE 'BRAIN SIZE EQUALS INTELLIGENCE' bit? It's insulting to MY intelligence. A successful animal is AS INTELLIGENT AS IT NEEDS TO BE. More brain-power would be a waste of resources. An animal with a tiny little brain, in the environment that it is adapted for, could be considered highly 'intelligent' due to it's ability to live and be successful in THAT environment. Take it out of that environment and place it in one that it's not adapted for, and it could be considered 'stupid.' Brain size has nothing to do with that.
ReplyDeleteWell said Jess!!! Tha JFC is usually more fun than much anything else. Sometimes the info they give is interesting, but most of the time, it's over the top.
ReplyDeleteI watch it on Direct TV on Demand, so I just download them and watch them whenever I want to, so I'll keep an eye out for the "hard-wired" ceratopsians.
I agree that dinosaurs didn't have huge brains, but like you said Jess, they didn't need them! You don't need a huge brain to figure out, "stay with the group, they are friend, they are enemy, eat something, make babies, sleep." You really don't.
:) Erin
A small brain does not equal an inability to engage in complex behaviors or to make decisions regarding behavior. A small brain does not indicate that an animal can only engage in hard-wired behaviors. Biologists are now realizing that animals previously thought of as 'stupid' really are not, and that 'stupid' is really not a term that should be applied to animals. Reptiles specifically come to mind.
ReplyDeleteI think you have to look at modern animals that occupy the same niche when you are attempting to come up with behavior for extinct animals, but good grief, don't be stupid about it.
lol I agree absolutely! THe key to the past is the future! It's tough to think that scientists won't look at something that's alive today to compare, it really is. :)
ReplyDeleteHi Erin,
ReplyDeleteIt was originally thought to be another Carcharadontosaur but it doesn't have key characteristics. I'm sort of wondering if it was related to Megaraptor, since no arms were found. You never know.
Hi Nestor,
I've been watching. Some of the models are a bit off, and a few of the measurments are wrong, the Short faced bear was only 5.5-6 feet at the shoulder, not 12. It was 14 feet standing on it's hind legs. It was also not the largest bear, a subspecies of polar bear was much larger, the Short faced bear was all legs;) And the American Lion's head was way to big. But those are minor things.
I do agree with Jess on the brain size thing. Crocs have relatively small brains but have complex behaviors. They can even learn commands.
The show is going for flash with some substance, I would prefer a more classic dinosaur show but those don't do well and frankly the regular Joe Six pack is pretty ignorant when it comes to Dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. So you can't just do the facts because people will turn it off, they need something to keep the butts in the seats so some of it is a bit over the top.
With any TV show like this if you see something that you think is really cool or really suspect, look it up! On the plus side I found out about a toothed whale I didn't know about and I got to see Allosaurus.
A few things that I thought were interesting, the Majungatholus (now called Majungasaurus) Look a lot like a design I did for some computer graphics years ago, minus the head thing (I don't like these things on predators, too easy to get ripped off) I'm sure it's just a coincidence, the actual new restoration of the beast gives it tiny legs and feet besides tiny arms. It's freaky looking. And the Albertosaurus looked similar to a Gorgosaurus I drew awhile back for a web comic I never managed to do called Gondwanna. So it was almost like my art in CG moving around;)
It's something fun to watch after Bones:)
Best,
Brett