Slashdot Mirror
New Dinosaur Named After the Eye of Sauron
SchrodingerZ writes "95 million years ago, the dinosaur Sauroniops pachytholus roamed northern Africa. Fossils, originally found in southern Morocco, only consisted of the upper skull, which included the eerie looking eye socket which resembles the Eye of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings movies. Using skull comparison, it is theorized the two-legged meat-eater would have been 40 feet tall, challenging the Tyrannosaurus Rex in height. More fossils are needed for a full analysis, but so far it is very clear this dinosaur towered over many."
the eerie looking eye socket which resembles the Eye of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings movies
Nowhere in the article did they say that. In fact, if you watch this Slate video there's not much physically related between the extrapolated skeleton and the film adaptation of the Eye of Sauron -- however they did name the dinosaur after that deity/character. The reason they named it after Sauron is that all we know of this predator now is its eye (really just a piece of the socket) and the idea of a large predator being known only for its eye reminded the archeologists of Sauron in the Lord of the Rings.
I think the submitter was confused by the hyperlink in the article that was designed to generate more page clicks for NatGeo:
"The idea of a predator that is physically known only as its fierce eye reminded me of Sauron, in particular as depicted in Peter Jackson's movies," Cau explained. (See a picture of an alien planet that resembles the Eye of Sauron.)
(emphasis mine)
My work here is dung.
Should have called it "Sauronsaur".
Wow, the nerds HAVE taken over!
I won't worry until I start seeing names like "therewerenofuckingelvesathelmdeepiop".
I totally forgot how awesome dinosaurs are, until I saw this. I had the same kind thing in poster form when I was a youngling.
I find it hard to wrap my mind around calling a 95 million year old fossil "new."
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Sauron was named after dinosaurs, so why not?
Lets name some trees aftwr treants, while we're at it, and name some hobbled kid Bilbo.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
One has only to look at the sclerotic plates found in the eyes of birds to realize that they are dinosaurs.
Umm, ahh...
Ooops.
Aaahhh.
DAMNIT!
If you tell Peter Jackson, we'll get that Jurassic-Park-with-Hobbits tie-in movie we always wanted.
eerie looking eye socket which resembles the Eye of Sauron
Firstly I'm not sure how much an eye socket could resemble the Eye of Sauron, except that it might be round, and secondly there's no mention or pictures of eye sockets in the article, so what gives?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Now the next dinosaur movie/documentary about South African dinosaurs will be filmed in New Zealand.
as they believe that they have first rights to anything with an 'i' in
jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
Because if we only had the books to go by we would have no idea what they all looked like unless it was written in the book.
I was just excited to see a New Dinosaur. I never thought they'd re-evolve!
...One Dinosaur to find them,
One Dinosaur to bring them all and in the darkness eat them
In the Time of Cretaceous where the Shadows lie.
main(){char*c="main(){char*c=%c%s%c;printf(c,34,c
How awesome dinosaurs are
Eyeofsaurrr...
On this reading, Tolkien's creation of Sauron as an embodiment of evil is just the British class system at work.
All the "good guys" in Tolkien are one percenters; even the Baggins are very rich. So you could say that Tolkien was a kind of Republican shock-jock, he just didn't think of writing that Sauron was actually born in Kenya, and was a Muslim Communist.
I like the Terry Pratchett version [plot spoiler alert], in which the entire plot of LOTR turns out to have occurred in a backward, barbaric country, and missionaries are sent out to rescue the surviving Orcs.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
They are what some of the dinosaur lines evolved into.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
The earliest fossil hunters were all about blowing stuff up then marketing the remains as attractions. Well, what goes around comes around.
This lot have dug up one partial skull fragment, and some grant-hungry mouthwhore is now spouting off "ZOMFG bigger than T-Rex! Look, here it is eating Spinosaurs which we all know from Jurassic Park ate T-Rexes! Totes true, bro! Plus, it's called... uh... ChuckNorrorsaurus. Or whatever the kids are into these days. Really, we don't give a damn."
Pretty sad and pathetic, when it comes down to it, that science has to prostitute itself like that.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I had a conversation with the 1980's the other day. They told me that they don't want anything back and we can keep it.
You do know that he lived in Oxford, in an urban environment, and that the original of Fangorn is a small clump of trees in the Fellows' Garden of his college? Tolkien wanted a sanitised, managed environment; but he wanted other people to pay for it.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
http://www.curioustaxonomy.net/etym/fiction.html Enjoy!
Perl Programmer for hire
The story says it was estimated to be 40 feet *long*. 40 feet *tall* would have been mind-boggling huge for a predatory dinosaur. Only the very largest of dinosaurs, all plant-eating sauropods, reached such heights.
which included the eerie looking eye socket which resembles the Eye of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings movies.
Tolkien reportedly spinning in his grave at the moment.