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Anatomically Strange Dinosaur Vacuumed Up Food
TaeKwonDood writes "A paleontologist has discovered a 110 million-year-old dinosaur that had a mouth that worked like a vacuum cleaner, hundreds of tiny teeth and nearly translucent skull." The creature's vertebrae also consisted of more air than bone, and CT scans of the head suggest it continually held its head low for food vacuuming. Low-hanging fruit, indeed.
So this is a dinosaur that really sucked?
-Mike
I'm sorry; I don't know what I was thinking!
Here's the image of the bones
http://www.forumpix.co.uk/uploads/1195208745.jpg
Thanks to the Public Library of Science, their complete publication is available to us under the enthralling title Structural Extremes in a Late Cretaceous Dinosaur. I found Figure 1 especially interesting for its 3D visualizations of the skull structure. The thing's mouth really does resemble the shape of a vacuum cleaner, particularly one of those older models where the brush is on the end of a tube and all the machinery is in a little tug-along chassis. I'm inclined to think that it probably bit off the plants it was eating rather than "sucking" them up, though.
Still, neat stuff, and yet more proof that there are a whole bunch of Really Weird Things(TM) out there.
I've seen fish like Carp act like vacuum cleaners - maybe this dino grazed in water?
Did it lose suction when it got full? Or does it have dual cyclone technology?
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http://i.usatoday.net/tech/_photos/2007/11/15/dino472.jpg
Just because he sucked food doesnt mean u have to take a picture with the dinos head there....
/me checks the hall closet, my vacuum doesn't seem to have teeth and a transluscent head...
Were that I say, pancakes?
Its head is shaped like a vacuum cleaners nozzle, but the article also states that it grazed like a cow. Cows don't vacuum (more the other way around) and nowhere in the article is there any suggestion that it vacuums except in sentences that seem to be written by a journalist, not a scientist.
If the animal did hover up its food it would need some way to create a large enough vacuum. Some fish do it, by suddenly expanding their mouth so that water, and hopefully ffood is sucked in to the "new" space. But that is a lot easier then to do the same thing with air. Just check the amount of power needed to vacuum up even an ant.
Unless the animal has some radicial new systems the only way for it to create a vacuum would be to expand its body to take in air. Doable,and if you are a large animal the amount of suction would be impressive but, well why?
If it grazed it meant it ate plants, you can't vacuum up plants because they are attached to their roots. Once you cut of the grass with your mouth, you no longer need to suck it up.
About the only thing I could see it being used for is to suck up small animals, like say sucking up ants. Still, I think that animal would also be sucking up a lot of dirt.
Frankly I think this is just bad journalism, the scientist said its mouth looks like a vacuum cleaner nozzle and the journalist turned that into the critter vacuums up its food.
Anyone found ANY link suggesting otherwise?
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An upgrade from the woolly mammoth model?
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If this dinosaur were female, it would not be called (as per the title) "anatomically strange". It would be called "anatomically correct".
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
They've finally discovered Wilma's vacuum cleaner.
"Newly discovered dinosaur sucks."
Eat a Chicken, You know you want to.
Must be called YoMommasaurus.
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My wife turned on Good Morning America while I was still groggy from sleep. While I lay there listening to the TV, they ran this story, saying that the dinosaur had "over 500 toddler-sized teeth." I thought, "A toddler is a strange thing to compare the size of a tooth to, but my god, that thing's HUGE!"
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-- See?