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."

Comments

Horatio says...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll bet someone... *sunglasses* ...will have a bone to pick with this.

YEAAAAAAAAH!

Bring on the Bible jokes

[timeOday]

They're so funny, every... single... time.

Disgusting

[oldhack]

I don't care what the dino people's fetish is, but stop naming dinos -annus.

And name this one Z-Rex.

April Fools

[Anonymous Coward]

Article's Date

12:30AM BST 01 Apr 2011

Re:April Fools

[Hazel Bergeron]

You've clearly never read an economics journal.

Re:How about..

[Seumas]

We'll nickname him "The Zuck" and say China named it after the Facebook pioneer. Speaking of which, someone create a Zhuchentyrannus Magnus facebook account, stat.

Took a while to hit the FP

[jd]

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.

Re:Took a while to hit the FP

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Hollow bones does not mean the bones are weak.

It is very well known that most of the strength of a structure [*] comes from the outermost parts of the structure and the center is usually a dead weight. That is why you see most wheels are thinned out between the hub and the rim with lots of weight reducing holes in the in-between portion. Next time you board a plane, gander a look at the thickness of the skin of the fuselage. What you see is the strengthened and parts because of the cutout for the door. Even then it looks awfully thin. The real skin of the plane is hardly 1 or 1.5mm thick. Now remember there is no "chassis" or a frame for a airplane fuselage. That skin is the only load bearing part for the fuselage. It is called monocoque (single shell) construction. The entire bending strength and torsional rigidity of the airplane fuselage comes from the skin. The bulkheads are used to keep the shape and to attach the load of your seats and deck to the fuselage! Ha, ha, scared you right? But it is true.

So hollow bones of these massive animals does not mean the bones are weak. It just means evolution, tinkering with the design has found that it can save some weight and materials by using hollow cross sections like box girder's for a load bearing part.

[*] OK, for the structural engineering purists: I plead guilty to oversimplification. What I really mean is that most of the contribution to moment of inertia comes from the outer parts of the cross section. I beams, box girders etc.

Same height and weight as an elephant

[DeadboltX]

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.

Pronunciation

[Praseodymn]

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?!

Re:Pronunciation

[DNS-and-BIND]

Are you suggesting that English speakers should use the Mandarin pronounciation? That's insane. Where'd you get that idea? English speakers can't do it. It just gets pronounced zzzzzh. Try giving Mandarin speakers a name like Worthington or Covington, there is no way that they can pronouce it correctly, nor should they be expected to.

P.S. zh is not the most difficult sound in Mandarin for English speakers. The worst are j, q, x, and especially r. I have known several long-term residents of China who speak Chinese much better than I do, and they still say "shay-shay" instead of "xiexie". Your advice on pronounciation is listed among the common misconceptions. Please stop giving strange, creative, and wrong instructions on how to pronounce Mandarin's sounds. Read this page to learn how to pronouce zh correctly. People who will never speak a word of Mandarin in their lives don't need to worry about it.

I'm sure the name is just a result of the scientist trying to be a proper multiculturalist. It is suitable that the dinosaur be named with this way, it is good behavior and will go over well with his academic colleagues. If the plebes can't pronounce it, fuck 'em.

Interesting a European was the lead discoverer

[Michael Woodhams]

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.

Re:Interesting a European was the lead discoverer

[rtfa-troll]

There have been a bunch of interesting paleontological discoveries by Chinese scientists in the past few years. These were reported in western media. Generally it's not surprising if they end up attracting good people from elsewhere and if there weren't scientists from other countries getting involved then you would begin to be concerned. International collaboration is a crucial element of scientific credibility. China probably (rightly) wants that more than it wants credit for any particular dinosaurs. From a long term economic point of view this should probably be more important in China's attempt to overtake the USA economically. There is no way that research like this is going to be properly funded by private companies but you need it to get the really bright fundamental science people to come and visit and that, long term, is what drives real invention, not just thousands of patents on minor variations of the same idea.

Assumptions as Facts

[Israfels]

The gigantic creature roamed North America and east Asia between about 65 million and 99 million years ago.

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.

Re:Assumptions as Facts

[dingen]

Since they found it in China, the researchers concluded it has to be a copy of something from the US.

Re:North America?

[voidphoenix]

The gigantic creature roamed North America and east Asia

Reading comprehension failure? Also, try this.

Re:How about..

[Anonymous Coward]

We'll nickname him "The Zuck" and say China named it after the Facebook pioneer. Speaking of which, someone create a Zhuchentyrannus Magnus facebook account, stat.

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002230338954

Bad Name. Sould have been named the Carolosaurus

[lul_wat]

..because at 6 tons it resembled by ex-wife, Carol.

Re:How about..

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002230338954

Pretty good... although music should be 'Cher' instead of 'T-Rex'. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that Cher roamed North America and east Asia between about 65 million and 99 million years ago.