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Posts Tagged ‘Dinosaur’

Dinosaur Bones

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

Dinosaurs, of all known animals, are quite popular mystifying creatures and are well identified by children of all ages. Dinosaurs were real and live animals that lived in most regions of the world and were completely wiped out 65 million years ago. The cause of their extinction is still debated but most of the researchers agree that when alive, the dinosaur dominated the wilds. We are aware of their existence by their remains, usually documented in bones, either found as complete skeletons or separately. We have also found their footprints in rock, as well as some eggs rooted in them. Most of the bigger dinosaur specimens have now been collected and displayed in larger museums.

Most of the researchers around the world agree that dinosaurs are one of the larger species that lived in the Age of Reptiles, which was about more than 200 million years ago. It is estimated that the dinosaur age lasted for some 165 million years. During this time period, many types of dinosaurs roamed the wilds. Researchers have successfully come to know the variety of species of dinosaurs that existed during this time. This is done by the study of fossils of dinosaur bones being found out at different places of the world. However, many dinosaurs will never be discovered. This is due to the reason that only very few dinosaur bones are in reality fossilized through the delicate and temperamental process. In such a case, the tiniest dinosaurs and the largest will most likely be a mystery for the rest of time.

The fossilized dinosaur bones that have been unearthed from different parts of the world have helped us to know more about the mystifying creatures. The fossils of dinosaur bones serve as evidences that most dinosaurs had large bodies. Even the tiniest dinosaurs were bigger than anything else in their ecosystem and the largest dinosaur bones ever found indicate animals on a scale never seen in modern times. Dinosaurs bigger than the 38 ft tall Brachiosaurus found in Tanzania sometime between 1907-1912 have only been indicated by isolated bones.

Dinosaur bones can expose important information about the behavior of the dinosaur in its living environment. Time and again, computer simulations are employed to comprehend how a dinosaur with certain bones might have moved. These simulations compare the bones of the dinosaur with bones from more modern animals and then reconstruct the kinetics of movement based on the shapes of the bones. Because dinosaurs are thought to be more closely related to animals like birds and crocodiles rather than mammals, behaviors from these animals can be used to estimate dinosaur behavior. The analysis of bones used for movement, or Biomechanics, gives scientists information as to how quickly dinosaurs moved, if some dinosaurs could swim, and reveals whether ideas like sonic booms created by the diplodocid tail are fact or fiction.

Discovering Truth About Dinosaur Fossils

Thursday, May 14th, 2009

Paleontology is the branch of biology that studies the forms of life that existed in the past geologic periods and eras, mainly bases on its remains, the fossils. Essentially, fossils are remnants of a dead animal or a plant that can be seen these days on rocks and other form of hard earthly surfaces.

Although, of course, it doesn’t mean that the said “remains” are the real skeletons or the actual plant rather fossils can be a petrified product of the original and also be the imprints like footprints. Fossils are believed and considered to have been submerged on water before, for the reason of the belief of that the remains of animal or plant was first covered by a soft soil and after some times layers of it gathered on it, hardened, solidify and then were pressed on together by natural processes. The water that is made up of minerals goes through the layers and changed the plant or animal relics into a rock like appearance and features.

The most intriguing kinds are the dinosaur fossils. The name dinosaur is a derived word from Latin terms: deinos, which means, “Great;” sauros for “lizard;” and fossils meaning “dug up.” Literally, it means “great lizard that was dug up.” The occurrence of these things is not new to us anymore.

In fact, people have been finding dinosaur fossils for almost thousands of years. The very fist recorded finding of the existence of dinosaurs is most of it in England, through a British fossil finder named as William Buckland. It was in the year 1819 when he exposed his findings of Megalosaurus Bucklandii (Buckland’s Giant Lizard) from England.

In the year1824, his discovery was named after him. However, earlier than this, Reverend Plot had discovered a very large femur bone during the year 1676 also in England. After careful studies, authorities imply that it may in fact have belonged to a dinosaur. Nevertheless, because there were past discoveries of enormous human skeletal remains that may range from 8 feet to 12 feet-tall many assumed that the discovery might have belonged to a very tall, almost a giant like human. However, during the year 1838, the entire dinosaur fossil was seen at New Jersey, USA by William Parker Foulke.

Out of curiosity, many people would hollow out information about the presence and occurrence of dinosaurs way back early times and this helped them become aware of their existence so the next fossil discovery was given enough attention. Also, dinosaur fossils were believed to be millions of years old, which were based on its geologic column, which dates fossils based on the rock’s type, appearance, and formation where they are found.

These fossils are located all through the earth’s sedimentary layers. Almost 95.0% of all earth’s fossil recorded comes from the remains of marine invertebrates, 4.74% are from plants and estimate of 0.25% are land invertebrates and 0.0125% are a vertebrate. Among those vertebrates, the majority comes from fishes. Furthermore, those 95% vertebrates are found to have only one bone or less.

Thanks to dinosaur fossils, nowadays people are able to recognize that there are animals living on earth before the mankind occur. This made us realize the importance of animals consequently modern animals should be preserved as much as possible. These remnants also give us knowledge of the earth’s surface.