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New Dinosaur 'Siats Meekerorum' Discovered In Utah

Posted by Unknown on from the terrifying-birds dept.

minty3 writes with word of the discovery of a new carnivorous dinosaur from a time when T-Rex's ancestors were the size of small dogs "Named Siats meekerorum, after the man-eating monster from the Ute tribal legend, the fossil belongs to a species of giant meat eaters known as carcharodontosaurs and is the second one discovered in North America. 'This thing is gigantic,' Lindsay Zanno, a paleontologist at North Carolina State University, who discovered the species, said. 'There's simply nothing even close in this ecosystem to the size of this animal that could've been interpreted as an apex predator.'"

2 of 33 comments (clear)

  1. Leaps of Imagination by Toad-san · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It always amazes me, the staggering conclusions not just the media but the scientists themselves draw from such sketchy evidence.

    Three-clawed, they say (as opposed to T-Rex's two) .. but with NO, repeat, NO hand bones. Not a trace of the head: do we even KNOW it's a carnivore?

    Yeah, I know .. if you want to get published, you have to use a little imagination. Still ...

    I submit that Siats probably would enjoy a nice tea and biscuit snack if he were still around.

    1. Re:Leaps of Imagination by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      but with NO, repeat, NO hand bones

      They have bones from the hands and feet. There is a diagram in the Nature article, which doesn't require the subscription to see.

      Not a trace of the head: do we even KNOW it's a carnivore?

      The rest of the skeleton is incredibly similar to other carnivores. It is possible some side branch evolved back to not being a carnivore, but it is probably a pretty safe guess that this one didn't deviate that much. A drastic change in diet would be a bigger deal than a change in the number of digits.