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When Dinosaurs Battled Crurotarsans
onehitwonder writes "Reuters reported yesterday on new scientific research that indicates how dinosaurs beat out another early reptilian species for domination of the earth. Roughly 200 million years ago, dinosaurs battled with another dinosaur-like animal, the crurotarsan, which is related to the crocodile. Some species grew to 39 feet long, according to the article, at an epoch when few dinosaurs exceeded 10 feet in length. Scientists used to believe that dinosaurs beat out the crurotarsans because the dinosaurs were physiologically superior. But new research indicates that dinosaurs might have won out due to a large stroke of cosmic luck, the nature of which is speculative."
Fixed that for you, Kansas.
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
some kinda crocodile? Aw, here and I had this pegged for them to be the monster of the week on the SciFi late night "movie" "specials".
If I had a nickel for every time I had a nickel, I'd be richcursive!
We have birds and crocs now, both evolved descendants of these families. Only the cool ones died out, leaving us with the current underwhelming descendants and pretenders.
You sound like a really smart man. It's a good thing you know what sarcasm is!
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
That's not vodka at all, sir. I believe this would dovetail more neatly into the great pantheon of bum wines: your Mad Dog 20/20, Thunderbird, and what have you. :)
I can see it now, a new video at the Creationist museum, Dinosaurs vs. Crurotarsans, with humans trying to avoid being stomped (or eaten as a quick snack).
Or maybe a Hollywood movie, where after an earthquake, a huuuuge lost cavern cracks open, and crurotarsans come out. Then, just when we're striking back against Giant Creatures Immune to bullets, explosives, etc, another earthquake strikes, and another huuuge cavern opens, and out come dinosaurs....
mark "but where's the Big One with the blue glow?"
They're called "Jesus horses," you insensitive clod!
I saw a documentary about this once.
Is "beat out" some sort of horrible sexual reference or just another inane Americanism ?
Is this an evolution of "Puritan", a similar side-branch of development to "Creationists"?
I can just imagine those creationists fighting the dinosaurs some six thousand odd years ago. It's almost getting me hard ... go Raptors!
We have now repudiated the doctrine of survival-of-the-fitest in favor of survival-of-the-luckiest.
This could be employed to explain how weak flaccid white males came to dominate western culture in the last few centuries...
Why were so many of those creatures so big, and what is stopping creatures from getting to those sizes now?
What has changed?
While it's easier to spot fossils of huge animals, I don't think that's the only thing - I mean just look at the largest land animal now. It's small compared to the stuff back then.
Somewhere a crocodile is thinking:
"I think I'll go find a dinosaur and congratulate him on his victory in the battle for reptilian suprem...oh wait, they're all DEAD, aren't they?"
But new research indicates that dinosaurs might have won out due to a large stroke of cosmic luck, the nature of which is speculative.
This sounds like the perfect fit for /.
This isn't science, it's speculation. There's not actual evidence what happened (and probably never will be) so somebody came up with a guess that there was some sort of disaster that caused the dinosaurs to win out. This is what's properly called an ad hoc hypothesis, where somebody comes up with the idea of something unprovable to explain something. Phlogiston, the Continuous Creation of Hydrogen and the Luminiferous Ether are well-known examples from history, and there was a time I suspected that Dark Matter was another one. (Don't flame me, there's enough evidence now that there's something out there, but there certainly wasn't when the idea was first proposed.)
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I don't have a source, but I remember reading at one point that there was more oxygen in the atmosphere back then, resulting in larger creatures being possible; take with a grain of salt (i.e. do your research).
There was a much higher concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere, allowing for less efficient creatures to survive.
Ignorance is Bliss -- And the Opposite is True -- Genius is Madness
I would be a lot more interested in that. Think of the awful movie possibilities!
Your brain is not a computer.
I wouldn't go so far as to say it's not scientific, but I'm not sure its big news. He looked at the theory that dinosaurs evolved a direct superiority over crurotarsi, examined the one of the bases for it (physiological diversity as evidenced by fossils) and found it didn't fit the theory.
What's the next step in the scientific method? Reformulate the hypothesis. So what are the facts? Approximately 30 million years of co-existance before one group died out and another survived at the Triassic/Jurassic boundry. If it wasn't simply the rise of the dinosaurs (which is not disproven as the cause, it's simply lost one bit of support), what else could have caused that?
We know that in several instances planet-wide events have caused major extinctions. Fairly frequently even, as the wooly mammoths disappeared a mere 10,000 years ago. As it just so happens, there was a major extinction at the Triassic/Jurassic boundry. About half of all marine species existing at the time disappeared, in addition to nearly all of the crurotarsans and a few dinosaurs. It was basically as bad as the K-T extinction we all know is characterized by the disappearance of dinosaurs.
The cause is currently still unknown, but it's thought that the breakup of the Pangea supercontinent and associated volcanic activity is the most likely cause. An asteroid impact like the K-T extinction is currently not favored due to the lack of evidence like an appropriately aged crater.
So this extinction is already known not be limited to crurotarsans, and in fact was worse in the oceans than on land. My understanding is that is typical of climate-based extinctions like the PETM event. I think then that Dr. Brusatte is offering his physiological diversity theory as one more piece of evidence in support of an existing alternative theory, rather than some brilliant entirely new theory as reuters seems to suggest.
Still, this definitely suggests the dinosaurs had some sort of advantage over the Crurotarsans, which had common evolutionary ancestors from the earlier geological period. It may have been direct, like better agility (a factor not necessarily indicated by simply comparing diversity), or indirect like warm-blood helping them adapt to a changing climate better.
In short, this doesn't sound unscientific at all. It's more likely a poorly written article compounded with us the readers having trouble jiving it with all the things we learned about dinosaurs in grade school. On that note, I'm pretty sure half the pictures I remember seeing in grade school of early triassic "dinosaurs" were actually these guys.
And ad hoc hypotheses are not illegitimate. Dark matter is properly considered an ad hoc hypothesis, as was relativity, for that matter.
The crocodiles are still around, so despite winning the battle, dinosaurs lost the war BIG time.
The title was much more exciting when my dyslexia told me it said, "When Dinosaurs Battled Courtesans."
So... no sexy renaissance ladies battling giant lizards?
Okay, this is somewhat OT, but the article is on my short list for the award for worst web design. The link to page 2 doesn't function if you have javascript turned off. So okay, I told noscript to temporarily allow javascript on this page. But once you have javascript allowed, you get a distracting text banner scrolling across the top of the article, like something from someone's geocities homepage from 1995. Wow, let's combine the worst of web 1.0 and web 2.0!
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It's already loaded with enough sex, violence, intrigue, dismemberment, rape and murder to be meaningful to today's society. It's more disgusting than your average 18A torture-porn flick.
Maybe a new movie version is needed. It would be like "300" except because it's from the Bible it would be Sunday School-approved.
I'd like to see that on the flannelgraph.
Forget Alien vs Predator. I am so waiting for Dinosaurs vs Crurotarsans.
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
200 million years is about 6.31E15 seconds.
Hope that helps for all those /. folks who don't use American customary units.
The gigantic, fearsome, cubic Crouton-o-saurians cam rumbling through the low frisee, green leaf, and iceberg lettuces, smashing every living thing in their path. But they were lightweights, and when the comet smashed into Earth they knew they were in trouble. "Crumbs!," cried the Crouton-o-saurians, "we're toast!"
coding is life
Very large animals reproduce more slowly and they are huge walking targets for hungry, intelligent pack hunters (aka humans).
---dragoness
Seriously, I think whoever modded this 'flamebait' must be a teensy bit jealous. Off topic, I could see, but flamebait? Just because it made your sad little basement dwelling ass jealous, and made you feel like flaming me, does not make the above comment flamebait.
Tell you what, sad little virginal mods, I'm going out with a new hot chick this Saturday, I'll screw her once extra just for y'all.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I was wondering the same thing; I'm a paleontology nut but had never heard this term. I guess I'm a bit behind the times, for Crurotarsi turns out to be just a new term for a major subgroup of the old thecodont group. Although "thecodonts" are no longer accepted as a valid classification group, the term has been around for far longer, and except for the professionals, I'd bet a lot more of those people who are interested in the history of the Triassic have heard of "thecodonts" than "crurotarsans".
Creationism is unfalsifiable and so is not a scientific theory. The theory of evolution by natural selection, on the other hand, can't make predictions because the outcome is down to luck, making it also unfalsifiable. But the theory of evolution by natural selection is a scientific theory. You could forgive some people for being a little confused.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Too bad we don't have Jurassic Park technology to bring these creatures to life. Nothing is cooler than watching dinosaurs fight.
Oooh - look, Sci Fi's "Attack of the Hyper-Crurotarsans, species from River Dune is on in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .
Pug
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
I just want to make it clear, I am not condemning monogamy, as I have been monogamous and enjoyed it myself. I think your criticisms would be at least semi-valid if directed against habitual promiscuity, which is often a psychological symptom of an inability to achieve emotional closeness.
What my wife and I engage in is polyamory, which is more about love, sharing, and emotional openness than it is about sex. We don't really have casual sex (to be honest, the few orgies we went to were a let down.) We have intimate sex in multiple close relationships.
To reiterate: we are all quite close. We all share a deep emotional bond. Your judgment (not very Christian of you, by the way) is misplaced, and by trying to 'educate' me in the supposed deficits of my lifestyle, you are trying to sell coal to Newcastle.
I hope you can understand this, and see past any religious and social blinders you may have. I know you are a smart, if opinionated and judgmental, person. Despite my earlier frustration, I do have some hope that you can understand my life style without resorting to knee-jerk, pop-psychology judgments.
I think maybe you thought I was poo-pooing monogamy, which I am not, or advocating casual, unemotional sex, which I am not, though I don't think casual sex is quite as bad and empty as you make it out to be.
I question why you became so angry and intent on hurting me. Your post isn't really an attempt to communicate as it is an attempt to make yourself feel superior, and I question why you feel the need to do so.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton