Tuesday
Oct202009
Breaking News for Dinosaur Fans!
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at 06:58PM
It's not very often I have time to report on breaking news at I Don't Have Time For This, but here goes: A new – and tiny – species of dinosaur has been discovered. And guess what? You can go see it for yourself at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County!
Museum officials just released information about the Fruitadens haagarorum, which they're calling the smallest dinosaur ever discovered from North America. This little critter weighed less than two pounds and topped out at just 28 inches in length (think very odd-looking and oversized lizard, pictured above). The bones were discovered in Colorado in the late 1970s and were studied by an international team of scientists, including Luis Chiappe, Ph.D., Natural History Museum Dinosaur Institute Director. Their findings were released today in the British science journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
"Fruitadens is the smallest known dinosaur from North America; it's one of the smallest dinosaurs, period," Chiappe said in a press release today. "It tells you once again how dinosaurs range in size, from animals that were barely two pounds in weight to animals that were tens of tons in weight. That knowledge opens the door to further research about their feeding strategies and diets."
The Fruitadens populated the planet about 150 million years ago during the Late Jurassic period and was a speedy little critter that darted beneath the legs of its bigger bretheren. It possessed an unusual combination of different shaped teeth, suggesting it may have eaten both plants and animals (unlike most dinosaurs, which typically ate one or the other exclusively). It was named for the area of Fruita in Colorado, where the fossils were first discovered, and the Latin word for tooth. The second part of the name honors Paul Haaga, a NHM donor and Board of Trustees president.
You and your little fossil followers can go see the little Fruitadens at the museum's popular Dino Lab, where you can peer at the bones under a microscope and watch Dinosaur Institute sculptor and preparator Doyle Trankina reconstruct five Fruitadens. The reconstructed Fruitadens will be moved to a permanent home next to the 68-foot-long Mamenchisaurus inside the new dinosaur hall when it opens in July 2011.
Museum officials just released information about the Fruitadens haagarorum, which they're calling the smallest dinosaur ever discovered from North America. This little critter weighed less than two pounds and topped out at just 28 inches in length (think very odd-looking and oversized lizard, pictured above). The bones were discovered in Colorado in the late 1970s and were studied by an international team of scientists, including Luis Chiappe, Ph.D., Natural History Museum Dinosaur Institute Director. Their findings were released today in the British science journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B."Fruitadens is the smallest known dinosaur from North America; it's one of the smallest dinosaurs, period," Chiappe said in a press release today. "It tells you once again how dinosaurs range in size, from animals that were barely two pounds in weight to animals that were tens of tons in weight. That knowledge opens the door to further research about their feeding strategies and diets."
The Fruitadens populated the planet about 150 million years ago during the Late Jurassic period and was a speedy little critter that darted beneath the legs of its bigger bretheren. It possessed an unusual combination of different shaped teeth, suggesting it may have eaten both plants and animals (unlike most dinosaurs, which typically ate one or the other exclusively). It was named for the area of Fruita in Colorado, where the fossils were first discovered, and the Latin word for tooth. The second part of the name honors Paul Haaga, a NHM donor and Board of Trustees president.
You and your little fossil followers can go see the little Fruitadens at the museum's popular Dino Lab, where you can peer at the bones under a microscope and watch Dinosaur Institute sculptor and preparator Doyle Trankina reconstruct five Fruitadens. The reconstructed Fruitadens will be moved to a permanent home next to the 68-foot-long Mamenchisaurus inside the new dinosaur hall when it opens in July 2011.
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