Posted on 07/14/2009 9:19:30 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
The most complete skeleton of a type of pot-bellied dinosaur, a therizinosaur, has been discovered in southern Utah.
Such remains shed light on the evolution of leafy and meaty diets back in paleo times, suggesting that iconic predators like Velociraptor may have evolved from less fearsome plant-eating ancestors.
The newly discovered dinosaur, dubbed Nothronychus graffami, lived some 93 million years ago. When alive, the animal would have stood at 13 feet (4 meters) and sported a beaked mouth and forelimbs tipped with 9 inch- (22 cm)-long sickle claws.
Its stumpy legs, large gut and other features suggest the lumbering giant scarfed down plants rather than chasing after meaty prey.
"It takes a lot of gut-time to digest plants," said lead researcher Lindsay Zanno of the Field Museum in Chicago. "Plant eaters have to develop long digestive tracts to get the energy they need to survive."
Diet discovery
The dinosaur's physical features match up with other so-called therizinosaurs, a mysterious group of dinosaurs now thought to be a type of maniraptoran dinosaur, which share a common ancestor with birds (though the two groups split some 150 million years ago, during the Jurassic Period).
While most theropods, such as Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor, were meat eaters, the therizinosaurs likely consumed plants
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
“hold mu beer”
“Its stumpy legs, large gut and other features suggest the lumbering giant scarfed down plants rather than chasing after meaty prey.”
It’s in the same bowling league that I’m in - puts away a lot of Pabst Blue Ribbon!
Pot bellied PIG!
Stumpy legs and a pot belly...hmm. Sounds like a goose.
I’ll have a leafy green salad, with celery, bullrushes, and ferns. Hold the mayo!
...beer....
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