New Baby Dinosaur Fossil Reveals Cause of Death

sharkboy1200

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Sep 11, 2013
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It’s a pretty rare event to find complete fossils in good condition. After millions of years any number of things could happen to destroy fossils before they are discovered and documented by scientists, if the animal even fossilizes at all. Finding well preserved baby animals is particularly hard, since they are more likely to have gotten trampled or eaten after their death. Phillip Currie from the University of Alberta has recently uncovered a juvenile Chasmosaurus belli that was so complete and intact, he was actually able to speculate about the cause of death.

Chasmosaurus belli is commonly found in British Columbia, Canada. It is a relative of the triceratops and has the familiar ornamental frill. Up to this point, all of the skeletons have been adults. Random bones of smaller dinosaurs have been discovered, but lacked the context of a full animal. The discovery of the 70-million-year-old juvenile, which was only about three years old at the time of death, reveals important clues about how the dinosaur grew and changed over the course of its life. As it turns out, the young C. bellis look a lot like the adults, just smaller. The newly-discovered young dino was about three years old at the time of its death, measuring about 5 feet (1.5 meters) long. Adults grew to be about 15 feet (5 meters) long, though the body plan is essentially unchanged. Other baby dinosaurs have proportionally longer legs to keep up with quick-moving adults, but that does not seem to be the case with this species.

The fossil was found in what used to be a riverbed. This has led Currie and his research team to believe that the baby didn’t die at the hands of a larger creature. It most likely wandered out too far into the water and got caught in the current. Unable to save itself, it drowned and settled at the bottom of the river, where it would eventually become fossilized in the sediment. The body was so well preserved, Currie was actually able to see impressions from the baby’s skin in the surrounding rock. The team hopes to use this fossil to gain a deeper understanding of how C. belli lived and how it existed in the context of its ecosystem.

http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/new-baby-dinosaur-fossil-reveals-cause-death

Pretty cool stuff and I'm amazed it's in such good condition.
 
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<--doesn't believe in "million of years" but that's a cool news.
 
Poor thing forgot to put it's swimmies on :sad:
 
Cute lil baby dinosaur ... well, at 3 years old, I guess he's more like a toddler dinosaur. Those were my favorite types of dinosaurs (triceratops), back when I was a kid.
 
Does everything need to be turned into a science vs religion thing?

Who say anything about religion? You're the first to mention that, bro. ;) I just stated I disagree with "million of years." It's simple. It's only 11 words in my previous post. Nothing more. Nothing less. Relax.
 
Who say anything about religion? You're the first to mention that, bro. ;) I just stated I disagree with "million of years." It's simple. It's only 11 words in my previous post. Nothing more. Nothing less. Relax.
Generalization from me, sure, but honestly, first thing out of your mouth on a article about fossils. "I don't think the earth is a millions of years old." Just comes across as trollbait to me. Like your trying to intentionally start something and you got these arrows pointing at yourself, as if we need to make sure your comment is actually from you and not from Barack Obama or something. Maybe I am over reacting, but it just irks me. I mean, was that seriously your first thought upon seeing a rare fossilized baby dinosaur? "The earth isn't million of years old, but that's cool!" Maybe I just need to stay away from religion and political threads for a while. Get less butthurt over people saying lame things about amazing findings in this world.
 
Generalization from me, sure, but honestly, first thing out of your mouth on a article about fossils. "I don't think the earth is a millions of years old." Just comes across as trollbait to me. Like your trying to intentionally start something and you got these arrows pointing at yourself, as if we need to make sure your comment is actually from you and not from Barack Obama or something. Maybe I am over reacting, but it just irks me. I mean, was that seriously your first thought upon seeing a rare fossilized baby dinosaur? "The earth isn't million of years old, but that's cool!" Maybe I just need to stay away from religion and political threads for a while. Get less butthurt over people saying lame things about amazing findings in this world.

Understandable. I absolute have no intention of starting something to stir up or anything. Just simply voice my thoughts about what the article said about "million of years" since we are on the same topic about dinosaurs. If the article talks about killing people, I'll talk about killing people since it's the same topic. If it talks about million of years, of course I can talk about it. I have not broke the rules or anything, have I?
 
Smurfboy isn't known for trolling, so I'd cut him some slack. I can understand what Sharkboy is saying though. Questioning the age of fossils immediately makes me think of creationism vs. evolution, which feels like a diversion of the thread's purpose.
 
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I admit, gun was jumped on my part.Although, as Anderson said, I immediately thought Smurfboy was trying to turn the thread into a debate one right off the bat.
 
A lesson for parents to keep an eye on their kids...
 
A lesson for parents to keep an eye on their kids...
Opposite, think of how happy the scientists will be when they find our kids bones at the bottom of the ocean 11 krillion years later. We should put Bieber there. That way he'll be immortalized and people will think he was our king.
 
Opposite, think of how happy the scientists will be when they find our kids bones at the bottom of the ocean 11 krillion years later. We should put Bieber there. That way he'll be immortalized and people will think he was our king.
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Opposite, think of how happy the scientists will be when they find our kids bones at the bottom of the ocean 11 krillion years later. We should put Bieber there. That way he'll be immortalized and people will think he was our king.

For someone that put up a big fuss about someone mentioning the timing, then you stoke it yourself by adding the timing aspect into your own post and further excaberating it by making it seem even longer by calling it a "krillion" years, whatever that is. Just sayin' :txbrolleyes: :wink:
 
For someone that put up a big fuss about someone mentioning the timing, then you stoke it yourself by adding the timing aspect into your own post and further excaberating it by making it seem even longer by calling it a "krillion" years, whatever that is. Just sayin' :txbrolleyes: :wink:
Yes, because my using krillion in the completely plausible situation of a fossilized Justin Bieber totally wrecked any legitimacy I had with that post. :wink:
 
There was a truce between Aliens and Predators ohhh about 999,999 years ago. This is the result of that Era: a bastard child who was so distraught by realizing who his parents were he drowned himself in the waters of Lake Nickitockwa
 
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