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New Dinosaur Species Found In China
jones_supa writes "A previously unknown dinosaur has been identified from fossils dug up in China and has been nicknamed as 'T-Rex's cousin.' The gigantic creature roamed North America and east Asia between about 65 million and 99 million years ago. Named in honour of Zhucheng as Zhuchentyrannus magnus, this animal was about 11 metres long, 4 metres tall and it weighed about 6 tonnes. The research team was led by Dr. David Hone, from University College Dublin school of biology and environmental science."
We don't dig up any more dinos in China, that name is horrific.
I'll bet someone... *sunglasses* ...will have a bone to pick with this.
YEAAAAAAAAH!
They're so funny, every... single... time.
The dinosaur has been officially named Zhuchengtyrannus magnus in honour of Zhucheng, the city in which the fossils were found. But because of its huge size, scientists quickly tagged it T-Rex's cousin.
Yeah... Sure.... It because of its size... I believe you...
I don't care what the dino people's fetish is, but stop naming dinos -annus.
And name this one Z-Rex.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
12:30AM BST 01 Apr 2011
it's a faaake...
Its a guy in a Z-Wreck suit.
Lets hear it for scales!
Does it scale well?
This story's a few days old. Mind you, that's still not bad.
Anyways, the interesting part is that this new dino is only a little smaller than the largest T Rex ever found, making it quite possible larger specimins will be found. In turn, this raises the possibility that we're nowhere near as close to the top of the dino chain as we'd previously thought.
Having said that, we know T Rex had hollow bones essentially the same design and internal composition as modern birds. Now, it is true that the tallest bird that ever lived (the Giant Moa) was 13' tall, rather taller than a T Rex. This is important as a heavy weight on the top of tall spindly legs is going to generate rather different loads than a heavy weight much closer to the ground. It is also true that the heaviest dino, according to some estimates, may have been upwards of 20 tonnes. Clearly, this design of bone is capable of rather suprising feats under the right conditions. However, the T Rex is now thought by some to have been quite the Olympic sprinter, not a slow plodder like the Moa.
It doesn't take much to realize that if, indeed, that was the case that you simply can't up the tonnage to the limits the bones could take by standing still. They'd shatter long before you got to that point. Which means that if T Rex' ilk were indeed the sprinters claimed, you really are very close to the upper limits, ergo if the new cousin is found to be substantially larger, then T Rex was proportionally slower.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
African elephants can get to be 4 meters tall and 6 tonnes (12 feet and 13,000 pounds). This is about the height of a Tyrannosaurus's hips.
It's newly _discovered_, not new as in new iPhone.
Overly pedantic post is overly pedantic.
For those of you struggling to figure out just exactly how you're supposed to pronounce this creatures name..
Zh is a tough sound to make for English speakers. The h represents aspiration of the z, and the z is pronounced as a 'ds' sound. Mix ds with a j, and you're pretty much there.
Fucking hell, why did they have to name this thing with -the- most difficult sound in the entire Chinese language?!
Sometimes, you can, you go to hell for the rest of your life! That's a true thing.
Are the Chinese very generous in allowing access to their dinosaur quarry? Is there a shortage of Chinese paleontologists? (If so, why?) Was it really lead by a Chinese scientist but the western press gives us a biased story? Are there lots of these discoveries but the western press doesn't report them if made by a Chinese scientist? Was it just coincidence that one of only a few Europeans happened to get lucky? Do they have some exchange program, and we're just as likely to have a European dinosaur discovered by a Chinese scientist?
(Wild guess: China is somewhat short on paleontologists because China's per-capita wealth is fairly recent and paleontologists are a long lead-time item. Dr Hone's presence was in part to train the new wave of Chinese scientists. Also, he got lucky.)
Aside: TFA says "The research paper was published in Cretaceous Research in the online journal Science Direct." No - Science Direct is an aggregator/distributor of scientific papers in electronic form, from many journals. Cretaceous Research would be the journal.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Big Trouble In Little Jurassic Park
Two thoughts: Did Dinosaurs live anywhere else but China? Seems like there's no other place anymore that they're found. Also: "between about 65 million and 99 million years ago"? Did they live backward in time?
If they know the region where it roamed, does that mean this isn't the first of it's species discovered? Is there other evidence of this specific species in other areas? Are they just assuming and then stating as fact? I read the article, and it suggests the later.
The gigantic creature roamed North America and east Asia
Reading comprehension failure? Also, try this.
Excuse me, wtf r u doin?
lol...
No one went for the mildly insulting tag "Chinasaurus Rex"? Dissapointing.
..because at 6 tons it resembled by ex-wife, Carol.
Divide a cake by zero. Is it still a cake?
I might be being a bit of an anal retentive wise-ass, but isn't a dinosaur a reptile and not an animal?
Animal = member of the animalia kingdom
Reptile / dinosaur = member of the animalia kingdom = animal.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
A reptile is a type of animal. WTF, did I just get baited?
They do have somewhat of an "exchange program." Fellow from China was helping out at a dig in Alberta, Canada some years back when my father was up there on a working vacation. Apparently there are a number of sites in China that are absolutely lousy with dino bones.
The visitor also seemed a bit surprised at the methodology that was being used over here. We've all seen dino digs in films, and they're at least semi-accurate. Over in China, though, the preferred method back then (I am not kidding here) is to drill a hole and use a light explosive charge to shatter the fossil-bearing rock and then just glue all the bits back together. That method is *occasionally* used over here, but there, it was the standard.
As the other posters point out, a reptile is obviously also an animal. But, dinosaurs aren't reptiles. Reptiles have their legs besides their body, while dinosaurs have legs under their body (like mammals and birds). Also, there is evidence at least some dinosaurs might have been warm-blooded, which also disqualifies them as reptiles. And then there's the feathers...
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
Zh is a tough sound to make for English speakers. The h represents aspiration of the z, and the z is pronounced as a 'ds' sound. Mix ds with a j, and you're pretty much there.
Fucking hell, why did they have to name this thing with -the- most difficult sound in the entire Chinese language?!
Just payback for "Tyrannosaurus Rex". That's three Rs right there, a tough sound to make for Chinese speakers*.
*I am aware that Mandarin has the rhotic (as in Pinyin 'ri' or 'ren'), which for me is the most difficult sound in the Chinese language.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
I'm imagining, and it's big.. :0 big enough to feed my family for a few weeks, and it tastes just like chicken!
which is totally what she said
Amazing, previously unknown dinosaur found with a few fossil fragments in China and we already know it roamed North America?
April 3: China Detects 10 Cases of Radiation Contamination
April 4: New Dinosaur Species Found In China
...Or is China about to becme totally awesome?
Now, it is true that the tallest bird that ever lived (the Giant Moa) was 13' tall, rather taller than a T Rex. This is important as a heavy weight on the top of tall spindly legs is going to generate rather different loads than a heavy weight much closer to the ground.
The Moa had a mass estimated at less than 300 kg, while T.Rex had a mass estimated at 5.5 to 7 tons, 25 times heavier.
I find it easier to believe the T.Rex was a slow plodder carrion eater, rather than the Olympic sprinter hunter some people claim.
New dino species but still no direct link between us and the apes. I mean we've been searching hard haven't we? The only reasonable conclusion is that there is no link!
Huh? What do you mean? The Bible Belt is full of such links!
Oh, I see. What you mean is that rednecks are a more primitive life form than apes. Well, I guess you are right...
Eh, i don't know. I would assume more samples would help get a more accurate claim on the dino's age. I also believe it's scientific to give the information they have. It would be conjecture to choose an arbitrary age. That being said... it is a wildly large spread.
Maybe it would help if you actually read evolutionary theory first. Apes and humans split approx. 7 million years ago. Which means you won't find a human body with a chimpanzee head. It is still possible to find humans with chimpanzee brains, however. I'll leave it to your imagination where they can be found.
Fossil found in China recently, yet it "roamed North America"? How do they work that out if it's found in China? Unless of course China has now taken over North America....
The gigantic creature roamed North America and east Asia
Reading comprehension failure? Also, try this.
Okay, we know it roamed East Asia smarty pants. But if this was a "previously unknown" dinosaur, then how does North America fit in that sentence? Reading comprehension failure indeed.
You mean, like the Deinosuchus?
The gigantic creature roamed North America and east Asia
Reading comprehension failure? Also, try this.
No, more like a phrasal failure by the author. This dinosaur, if it existed as claimed, did not "roam North America".
It roamed northern Pangaea, including the two continental plates which would separate to become what we now know as North America and Asia.
Speaking of reading comprehension failure, you might want to follow your own link and read more than just the first paragraph. Pangaea (which was the supercontinent in existence during the relevant Cretaceous) consisted of the NORTHEAST edge of the North American plate mashed up against the SOUTHWEST edge of the Eurasian plate. West Asia wouldn't have been significantly farther from North America.
In any case, it is not a failure of comprehension for someone to have a problem with the phrase "roamed North America". There is a built-in vagueness of meaning there; a good science writer would anticipate this and provide alternate phrasing or appositive clarifiers.
Hollywood, Television, has become the dream machine. We need to take that back; each of us is a Dream Machine
The term "reptile" is considered deprecated in Biology. The reptiles are a so called paraphyletic group.
In an ideal case, a term for a group of related livings (plants, animals, bacteria... you name it) should include both the common ancestor of all members in that group and all descentents of that group. Because not all descendents of reptiles are also reptiles (neither the mammals nor the birds are), biologist use the term Amniotes, which includes the classic reptile groups (turtles, snakes, lizards, dinosaurs, crocodiles et.al.) and birds and mammals too.
Fragments found in China means it roamed in North America too? That's a big assumption isn't it?
We find a new species of dinosaur about once a month.
Maybe we should have a dinosaurs.slashdot.org.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I be worried if it really was a new dinosaur species as that would either indicate that a fraud is going on, or worse that the dinosaurs are once again ruling the planet! Yikes in either case. [:)]
It sounds delicious and challenging :)
This is the sig that says NI (again)
ba-da-dum
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
of course that's where everything is made
T-Rex's Chinese cousin
And then it will vanish and no one will admit it ever existed.
And then it will come back with horns and nuclear symbols, and was apparently "always like that".
These guys existed well before us...
This must be some newly invented meaning for the word "new".
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!