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Fossil of Ant-Eating Dinosaur Discovered In China

Posted by samzenpus on from the ancient-picnic-defender dept.

thomst writes "Charles Q. Choi of LiveScience reports that a farmer in southern Henan Province in China has dug up the first known ant-eating dinosaur, a half-meter-long theropod (the dinosaur family to which T. Rex belongs), whose fossilized remains were described as 'fairly intact'. The 83- to 89-million-year-old pygmy dinosaur has been named named Xixianykus zhangi by Xig Xu, De-you Wang, Corwin Sullivan, David Hone, Feng-lu Han, Rong-hao Yan, and Fu-ming Du, whose paper on the critter, A basal parvicursorine (Theropoda: Alvarezsauridae) from the Upper Cretaceous of China, was published in the March 29 issue of Zootaxa (the abstract is available in PDF format for free, the full article is paywall-protected.)"

15 of 64 comments (clear)

  1. Photo by Z34107 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Missing from the summary: A photo of the ant-eating dinosaur.

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  2. Re:Ant eating dinosaur? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Ancestral Insects are much, much older than dinosaurs, and have a much more diverse and interesting history. Unfortunately, as in the modern era, if it's not a vertebrate it doesn't have the national-geographic wow factor.

  3. Re:Ant eating dinosaur? by Grishnakh · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hey now, there's no call for insults like that. For all you know, he could be dumb white trailer trash.

    Or, he might not be dumb at all, and simply an unfortunate victim of the American public school system.

  4. Am I the only one that .... by TheRealQuestor · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Doesn't believe one single story on any website starting about noon March 31st to April 2nd? Just sayin'

    1. Re:Am I the only one that .... by T+Murphy · · Score: 2, Funny

      You're the only one. Everyone else knows not to believe any article anywhere until it is confirmed by The Daily Mail.

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  5. Re:I doubt it's been slashdotted... by Dan+East · · Score: 3, Informative

    No, Yahoo is blocking direct access to the print version of the article. Remove "print" from the end of the URL and it will work.

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    Better known as 318230.
  6. U can haz link by arielCo · · Score: 2, Informative

    Here. Apparently the submitter wanted to provide a link to a print view, but it only works when redirected from an intermediate [Print] link in the article itself :/.

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  7. Re:I for one welcome our new insect eating overlor by xipho · · Score: 3, Informative

    This is biology we're talking about, "all" almost never holds. Most insect diversity then (like now) was probably under 1cm in size.

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  8. Re:Ant eating dinosaur? by Bigjeff5 · · Score: 3, Informative

    he could be dumb white trailer trash.

    The proper name is "cracker".

    Or, he might not be dumb at all, and simply an unfortunate victim of the American public school system.

    I believe the proper terminology for that is "functionally idiotic". Not dumb, but you can't tell the difference.

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  9. Question by Allnighterking · · Score: 2, Funny

    Does anyone know tf the dinosaur was dead before the ant started eating it, or did it die because the ant was eating it. (must have been one heck of a big ant too.)

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  10. Re:Ant-eating? or Termite eating? by Bigjeff5 · · Score: 2, Informative

    He's probably thinking of the aardvark, numbat, echidna, or pangolin, which are all colloquially known as "anteaters" but don't eat ants and aren't in the same family.

    To be fair, anteaters do eat mostly termites, not ants.

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    Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
  11. Check your /. settings by tobiah · · Score: 2, Informative

    You need to go to slashdot preferences -> classic index -> slashboxes and uncheck "Chinese farts". I had it accidentally set and was getting, like 2 billion fart stories a day.

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  12. Re:I doubt it's been slashdotted... by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Well! That totally fucking sucks. And after so much shouting and training of people to send &?print links.

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  13. And In Other News... by hyades1 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence of a dinosaur that bitches at its mate when he gets home late from work and smelling of beer. The creature apparently has a tongue that's hinged in the middle and designed to wag at both ends simultaneously, and jaw muscles better fitted to an animal three times its size.

    I have no intention of attempting to assign a scientific name to this creature.

    I want to live.

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  14. Oh, then another thing you probably didn't know by NotSoHeavyD3 · · Score: 3, Informative

    I mean given that people often confuse ant-eaters and aardvarks for each other. At least one species of ant-eater is actually quite dangerous. More specifically the giant ant-eater can and has killed people. (Of course being more than 100 lbs and having claws several inches long that it uses to rip into ant mounts that are as hard as concrete that's not that much of a surprise.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_ant_eater

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