{"id":3270,"date":"2020-05-13T08:49:03","date_gmt":"2020-05-13T13:49:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceandsf.com\/?p=3270"},"modified":"2020-05-13T08:49:05","modified_gmt":"2020-05-13T13:49:05","slug":"paleontology-news-for-may-2020-whats-there-to-do-when-youre-ordered-to-stay-at-home-during-a-pandemic-why-study-dinosaurs-of-course","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceandsf.com\/index.php\/2020\/05\/13\/paleontology-news-for-may-2020-whats-there-to-do-when-youre-ordered-to-stay-at-home-during-a-pandemic-why-study-dinosaurs-of-course\/","title":{"rendered":"Paleontology News for May 2020. What’s there to do when you’re ordered to stay at home during a pandemic? Why study dinosaurs of course!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We tend to think of paleontologists as working out in the field, digging around in some barren, rocky terrain unearthing the remains of long extinct forms of life. That’s partly true of course, after all you have to find some fossils before you can study them. And most paleontologists do prefer being on site where the discoveries are made, never knowing what they’ll see in the very next rock they turn over. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Although it is often hard, dirty, sweaty work take it from me fossil hunting is the pure joy of discovery. (Credit: CBS Denver)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Still, a lot of the work in studying ancient life can only be accomplished back in the lab or in the office. Cleaning fossils, examining fossils, comparing them to similar fossils and of course, writing up the papers that will tell your colleagues, and interested laymen like me, what you’ve found. A lot of that work can safely be accomplished even during the ‘social distancing’ needed to stop the spread of Covid-19. So let’s take a look at some of the work that’s being accomplished by paleontologists even in the shadow of a deadly disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cleaning fossils has to be done in the lab where you can take your time and do a meticulous thorough job. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Spinosaurus aegyptiacus is one of the most intriguing dinosaur species known to science. Originally discovered in Egypt back in 1912, Spinosaurus is a large predatory dinosaur belonging to the group known as theropods, the group that includes the mighty T rex and Allosaurus along with the smaller Raptors. Spinosaurus lived during the middle to late Cretaceous period (112 to 93 million years ago) and had one distinguishing feature that set it apart from its relatives, a broad, sail like flap of skin along its back that was held up by spines coming off of the animal’s vertebra. See image below. Large, floppy skin features like Spinosaurus’ sail are usually either for thermal regulation or display or both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Artist’s impression of a Spinosaurus with a human figure to give scale. (Credit: New York Times)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The loss of the only known skeleton of Spinosaurus during World War 2 brought all research into the creature to a halt, and Spinosaurus was almost forgotten by science. Then in the 1990s further fossils belonging to another species of Spinosaurus, S maroccanus were discovered in Morocco by a National Geographic team led by Doctor Nizar Ibrahim of the University of Detroit Mercy along with Professor Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago. Exploring a layer of rock that has been named the Kem Kem group and which is exposed across a wide area of Morocco the team has unearthed fossils of many different species including specimens of Spinosaurus that have allowed paleontologists to resume the study of this odd dinosaur. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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University of Chicago paleontologist Paul Sereno with a skeleton of Spinosaurus. (Credit: The Telegraph)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Actually\nthere is a lot of disagreement over whether S maroccanus is a second species.\nWith the original S aegyptiacus destroyed it is impossible to make a direct\ncomparison and the drawings that remain of the bones of S aegyptiacus are\ninsufficient to determine just how different the new specimens are with\ncertainty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nnew specimens have re-ignited several debates about the nature of Spinosaurus,\nthese include whether or not the predator was actually larger than the famous T\nrex and whether or not Spinosaurus was at least semi-aquatic, spending a large\nfraction of its life in the water. Based on the examination of the fossils\ndiscovered during the 1990s the full length of Spinosaurus was between 12.5 and\n18 meters while the animal’s weight was between 6.5 and 7.5 tonnes. If these\nestimates are true that would in fact make Spinosaurus a fraction larger than\nthe venerable T rex. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As to the question of Spinosaurus being semi-aquatic the dinosaur’s long narrow, crocodile like snout along with its short, powerful legs do indicate a life style similar to that of\u2026well crocodiles. Add in the fact that the fossils of Spinosaurus were discovered in the same rock beds that yielded numerous specimens of an ancient and extinct sawfish named Onchopristis and it seems clear that Spinosaurus lived in an environment that was as much water as land, such as a swampy river delta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The extinct fish Onchopristis. Measuring eight meters in maximum length this creature was a monster itself! (Credit: Prehistoric Life -Wiki)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Artist’s impression of the sort of environment and life that Spinosaurus lived. (Credit: BBC)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now perhaps the crucial piece of evidence has been unearthed, as bones from the tail of Spinosaurus have recently been discovered. Based on those bones the tail of Spinosaurus was a long, flexible and fin like. A tail well suited to providing propulsion in the water. This latest discovery pretty much clinches the hypothesis that Spinosaurus is the first type of dinosaur known to have evolved into a swimming creature. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tail bones tell the story. The tail of Spinosaurus was big and powerful, perfect for propulsion underwater! (Sci-news.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

These new discoveries make Spinosaurus an example of how varied and diverse the group we call dinosaurs was, and the research published by Ibrahim and Sereno provides an example of how scientists can continue their work even during a pandemic. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We tend to think of paleontologists as working out in the field, digging around in some barren, rocky terrain unearthing the remains of long extinct forms of life. That’s partly true of course, after all you have to find some fossils before you can study them. And most paleontologists do prefer being on site where … Continue reading “Paleontology News for May 2020. What’s there to do when you’re ordered to stay at home during a pandemic? Why study dinosaurs of course!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[1104,1105,1103,1106],"class_list":["post-3270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","tag-paleontology-lab-work","tag-paleontology-news-may-2020","tag-science-during-the-pandemic","tag-spinosaurus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceandsf.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceandsf.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceandsf.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceandsf.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceandsf.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3270"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/scienceandsf.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3279,"href":"https:\/\/scienceandsf.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3270\/revisions\/3279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceandsf.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceandsf.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceandsf.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}