Dinosaur News

[bh480@scn.org]

Dinosaur News
From: Ben Creisler bh480@scn.org
Here are a few dinosaur-related news items I have come 
across in the past few days:

New study in Alberta indicates cooling climate before 
asteroid impact. Calgary Herald article url (all one line):

http://www.canada.com/calgary/calgaryherald/story.asp?id=
{0A412AAD-3D4C-4FF9-BFF3-6AAFA50C1072}


Rebbachisaurus found in Spain--the first specimen from 
Europe and the oldest known. The partial skeleton includes 
caudal and dorsal vertebrae and ribs, plus parts of the 
anterior part of the body previously not known. Couldn't 
get a url for this one so here's part of the text in 
Spanish: 

La Revilla-Ahedo (Burgos), 3 ago (EFE).- Las excavaciones 
hechas durante el mes de julio por el colectivo 
arqueologico-paleontologico de Salas de los Infantes 
culminaron con el hallazgo de restos de un dinosaurio 
rebaquisaurido que, a falta de mas estudios, se ha 
confirmado como de los mas antiguos del mundo. 

Fidel Torcida, director del museo paleontologico de Salas 
de los Infantes y miembro del colectivo arqueologico, 
indico hoy a Efe que el hallazgo se realizo en un 
yacimiento de La Revilla-Ahedo que creian practicamente 
agotado. Se trata de un tipo de dinosaurio del que hay 
poca documentacion, del que solo se habian encontrado 
hasta ahora restos en Africa y America del Sur, aunque son 
menos antiguos de los localizados en Burgos, que se estima 
que puedan superar los 120 millones de anos. 

"Es el unico ejemplar encontrado hasta ahora en Europa y 
al tratarse del mas antiguo hallado en el mundo su 
importancia es enorme porque incluso podriamos llegar a 
confirmar con futuros estudios que el origen de esta 
familia de diplodocidos estuvo en Europa", indico Fidel 
Torcida. 

Junto a restos de vertebras caudales y dorsales y 
costillas dorsales y caudales se han encontrado tambien 
partes de la mitad delantera del esqueleto que son unicas 
en el mundo, "lo que permitira realizar estudios mas 
completos sobre las caracteristicas anatomicas de la 
especie y clasificarlo en funcion de su relacion evolutiva 
con otros diplodocidos. 

Los huesos, que se encuentran en estado fosil, han 
aparecido en una zona de concreciones arcillosas y 
areniscas, por lo que su extraccion ha sido muy compleja y 
ahora requeriran una restauracion que ya se esta 
realizando en el museo de Salas de los Infantes donde 
seran expuestos posteriormente. 

Hundreds of sauropod tracks found in Bolivia. 
LA PAZ, Aug 9:  Some 300 to 400 footprints of the Sauropod 
dinosaur, dating back 65 million to 70 million years, have 
been found in Bolivia, according to Marco Barriga, a 
member of the country's leading paleontology society. The 
tracks, some 25 to 70 centimeters deep (10 to 28 inches 
deep), were found at two different sites in the 
southeastern Bolivian communities of La Quemada and Vina 
Vieja, Barriga said Thursday. 


British video-game manufacturer to pay players to change 
their names to Turok. News story reads in part:

Wanted: Adventurous video game fans willing to change 
their identities. Must sign names, pay bills and otherwise 
identify themselves as dinosaur hunter called Turok. 
Hoping to push back the frontiers of advertising, a 
British marketing firm said Monday it would pay 500 pounds 
(dlrs 785) each to five people for the right to transform 
them into human billboards for a fantasy superhero. 
Acclaim UK is seeking applicants who will legally change 
their names for one year to promote the latest installment 
of its video game series about Turok, a time-traveling 
American Indian who slays bionically enhanced dinosaurs. 

CORRECTION: My last posting had an item about the giant 
mosasaur "Oronosaurus" that contained a dumb typo--
"Negnev" should have been Negev--I saw my typo after I hit 
the send button and figured people would know what it 
supposed to
be.