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German Paleontologists Find a 'Near-Perfect' Dinosaur Fossil
First time accepted submitter howzit writes "German paleontologists have discovered what they believe is the best-preserved dinosaur skeleton ever found. The flesh-eating member of the theropod subgroup, which walked on its hind legs, is about 98 percent complete, and also includes preserved bits of skin. 'The around 135-million-year-old fossil is of outstanding scientific importance.'"
Obviously, 'scientific made a msiatke, as Eearth was created in 6000 yrs.
Source: Conservapedia
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This post was here to show a type of (unexpected) reaction to this type of news nowadays.
I hope they found his saddle so the Creation Museum can update their exhibits.
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
It's a Wolpertinger!
what are you going to do with a 135 million year old dinosaur fossil?
Science?
People loan such finds to museums rather than donating outright so that they retain some control over how the find is maintained, displayed, and so on. If the museum does a poor job of maintaining the fossil or puts it in some back closet where the public can't see it, one would like to be able to take it back and loan it to a museum that will treat it better.
Plenty of things are loaned out (See what NASA does alot) simply so they retain their rights over the product while still allowing it to be showcased (recognition) or allowed to be further researched. Generally speaking, this is standard practice for stuff like these. The main reason is, that the person maintain control over who gets to see it and where it's located and under what conditions. One example is that instead of a museum owning it and showing it only in 1 city, a person may loan out the bones to various museums for various period of time allowing for a greater amount of people who will see the fossil.
As for the skin, no idea. Hard to say but it probably has something to do with how well the entire fossil is preserved. It might be such that a condition allows for bits of the skin to be preserved in some form. There is too little information on how and the conditions at which the fossil was found.
They're going to take it to an island off New Zealand and clone it?
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)
The "skin" is still fossilized, but you can see the texture and possibly structure of it. It's not preserved in the way you're thinking. Although, they have found some biological matter preserved in the center of large bones before. T-rex bones, I believe.
A fossil like this is rare and worth a decent amount. Collectors will pay obscene amounts for it, amounts that a museum may not be able to match. So just be happy they loaned it to a museum at all, so at least we can glean some scientific knowledge from it.
A fossil like this is rare and worth a decent amount. Collectors will pay obscene amounts for it, amounts that a museum may not be able to match. So just be happy they loaned it to a museum at all, so at least we can glean some scientific knowledge from it.
Some good news on that front, from the article:
"The fossil, discovered between one and two years ago, has been registered as a German cultural asset, giving it a status that drastically lowers its monetary worth, but ensures the artefact will remain in the country.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
If you are going to pretend to be a bible banging fool, shouldn't you spell like one also?
The arms in theropods are like avian wings in that for most species they are in a rigid clapping position. There was a Slashdot article about this some time ago. Actually clapping doesn't quite describe it as you'll find ancient bird fossils have their claws facing forwards just like this one.
The "damaged" hip is actually one of the two main features used to tell a theropod away from other dinosaurs. The theropods ischium is facing backwards, while their illium faces forwards. This is the ancestral configuration, although it was secondarily lost in the species most closely related to birds, which have *both* facing backwards,
Plant-eating Ornithischia, like the Triceratops, on the other hand, evolved that "new" hip configuration much earlier.
10 little-endian boys went out to dine, a big-endian carp ate one, and then there were -246.
Some questions the fine article could have answered: * What material was this fossil found in? * Where was it found roughly? * What theories exist for why it was so well preserved?
It happens if the dead body is immediately covered by an air tight layer of e.g. sand, tar or mud. So you find many well preserved fossils in former swamps, river banks or tar pits. In this case it seems to have been preserved by sinking in the seabed of the Paratethys, part of the Tethys, which was an ocean between Africa and Eurasia, and whose remainings are the contemporan Mediterran.