Unusual New Species of Dinosaur Identified

cervesaebraciator writes "A new species of heterodontosaur, called Pegomastax, has been identified. Paul Sereno, a University of Chicago paleontologist, published a description of this species in a recent issue of ZooKeys. Although this diminutive (60 cm or less) species was herbivorous, it also possessed a set of sharp, stabbing canines in its parrot-shaped beak. Dr. Sereno holds that these canines where likely 'for nipping and defending themselves, not for eating meat.' Perhaps the most imaginatively intriguing aspect of all, the body of the Pegomastix might have been covered in porcupine-like quills, making for perhaps the least attractive dinosaur of all time. You can almost hear Dieter Stark screaming 'Helvetes jävlar!'"

Comments

Re:Bless

[Z34107]

Surely if you can troll, an omnipotent, omniscient deity could troll as well. See also: the platypus, the kangaroo, and this dinosaur.

Re:Det var som fan!

[G3ckoG33k]

http://sv.bab.la/lexikon/svensk-engelsk/det-var-som

Det var som fan.
I'll be damn.

Det var som fan!
Son of a bitch.

Det var som tusan.
I'll be dogged.

Det var som det var.
It was like that.

Det var som i en mardröm.
It was like a bad dream.

Det var som manna från himlen.
It was like manna from heaven.

Det var som att tiden stod still.
It was as though time had stopped.

Det var som ett riktigt äventyr.
It was like a real, live adventure.

Du kan sätta ner det var som helst.
You can set that down anywhere.

Det var som Albanien med neonljus.
It was like fucking Albania in neon.

Det var som jag alltid har misstänkt.
Just as I always suspected, Fogg.

Det var som något ur Caligula.
It was like something out of Caligula.

Det var som i första klass.
Then there was this time in first grade.

Och det var som att bli psykoanalyserad.
And it was like being psychoanalyzed.

Det var som om de inte såg att han var där.
They acted as if he wasn't even there.

Det var som att få Theresa tillbaka.
It was like Theresa had been brought back to me

Det var som att vara på en annan planet.
Monrovia itself was Iike being on another planet.

Det var som att, det här är min stund i ljuset.
It was, like, this is my time for shine.

Det var som om luften blev ett mullrande tåg.
And she said it was like a thunderous train of air.

Det var som om jag tittade på en film från den tiden.
It was as if I was watching a film from those times.

Re:Bless

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot Rosy O'Donnel dude. Just making sure you covered everything.

Must be unique

[garryknight]

"stabbing canines in its parrot-shaped beak"

Now that's got to be really unusual: a beak shaped like a parrot...

Interesting Hypothesis

[djl4570]

Every time I read about a new species of dinosaur I keep this documentary in mind: A Third of Dinosaur Species Never Existed?

Many dinosaurs may be facing a new kind of extinction—a controversial theory suggests as many as a third of all known dinosaur species never existed in the first place.
That's because young dinosaurs didn't look like Mini-Me versions of their parents, according to new analyses by paleontologists Mark Goodwin, University of California, Berkeley, and Jack Horner, of Montana State University.

The documentary makes a compelling case that juvenile examples of various species have been misidentified as a separate species of dinosaur.

Re:Interesting Hypothesis

[argStyopa]

This seems commonsensical not just for paleontology but anthropology as well.

IANAA (I am not an anthropologist) but I've never understood how someone finds a chunk of bone that's 1/8 of a intact jawbone, and from that intuits that this is an entirely new species of hominid? The breathtaking breadth of natural human variation is apparent to anyone in a large crowd; how is some minute morphological difference of a FRACTION of a piece of bone suggestive enough that it reaches beyond that variation into indicating speciation?

Or, my cynic gland suggests, is it that anthropologists are fallible humans like the rest of us, and it's much more exciting, rewarding, and fame-creating to identify a potential new species, particularly when there is very little evidence that might contradict your assertion?

Parrot-shaped beak?

[wonkey_monkey]

It has a beak shaped like a parrot?

Re:Bless

[Sulphur]

You forgot Rosy O'Donnel dude. Just making sure you covered everything.

Jurassic Pork.

Herbivore with tusks?

[kbahey]

Herbivore with tusks? That is unheard of!

They definitely do not exist.

This is exactly what's happening.

[Immerman]

The idea that a third of all described dinosaur species may be unrecognized juveniles is a bit ridiculous

I'm assuming you haven't investigated the phenomena being discussed.

Mammals and reptiles both tend to develop in a continuous fashion - infants look much like miniature adults, and a juvenile will look like a blending of the infant and adult forms. Many birds on the other hand do NOT develop in this fashion - a not-quite-adult Hornbill for example looks much like an almost-adult-sized infant, it's not until it reaches full maturity that it's skull undergoes a dramatic morphological change to acquire the "horn" that gives it its name. If you only ever saw their skeletons you would likely conclude that the juvenile and adult were both adults of completely different species. Moreover if you only had a few samples you'd likely assume that skeletons of intermediate stages of skull transformation represented several other species.

One possible way of detecting this sort of error is examining internal bone texture - infants typically have much more porous bones than adults, with juveniles falling somewhere in between. Doing this for several similar dinosaur species has revealed a trend where whole "families" of species show a correlation between bone texture and skull shape, strongly suggesting that they may in fact be different developmental stages of the same species.