Sharp-toothed fossil links old and new dinosaurs (AP)

Tuesday, April 12, 2011 6:01 PM By dwi

WASHINGTON – The astonishing brainstorm of a fossil of a sharp-toothed beast that lurked in what is today the western U.S. more than 200 meg eld past is stuff a notch in dinosaur evolution.

The brief snout and slanting grappling teeth of the find — Daemonosaurus chauliodus — had never before been seen in a period epoch dinosaur, said Hans-Dieter Sues of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. Sues and colleagues inform the brainstorm in Wednesday's edition of the British book Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Sues, curator of chordate paleontology at the museum, said the brainstorm helps modify the evolutionary notch between the dinosaurs that lived in what is today Argentina and Brasil most 230 meg eld past and the later theropods like the famous Tyrannosaurus rex.

Features of the skull and cervix of Daemonosaurus indicate it was grey between the primeval famous offensive dinosaurs from South America and more modern theropods," said Sues. "One such feature is the proximity of cavities on whatever of the cervix vertebrae attendant to the structure of the respiratory system."

Daemonosaurus was unconcealed at Ghost Ranch, N.M., a well-known fossil place famous for the thousands of fossilized skeletons institute there, notably the diminutive dinosaur Coelophysis. Ghost Ranch was more fresh the bag of creator Georgia O'Keeffe, who was famous to meet the archeologic pad low artefact there, Sues noted.

Having institute exclusive the nous and cervix of sharp-toothed Daemonosaurus, the researchers aren't trusty of its exact filler but they put it would hit been near that of a gangly dog. Its name is from the Greek words "daimon" message evil fiber and "sauros" message gigolo or reptile. Chauliodus is derivative from the Greek word for "buck-toothed" and refers to the species' big slanted grappling teeth.

"It looks to be a mean character," commented paleontologist Apostle Sereno of the University of Chicago, who was not part of the research team. "I can't wait to see if they intend some more of the skeleton."

This fits in quite nicely between the dinosaur groups, Sereno said, even though its grappling is unlike anything that would hit been due in these primeval dinosaurs, which tended to hit more long snouts.

This find shows there is ease such to be scholarly most the primeval phylogenesis of dinosaurs. "The continuing expedition of even well-studied regions like the dweller Southwest will ease yield important newborn fossil finds," Sues said.


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