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Photo In The News: Fossil Handprints Show Birdlike Dino


Guest Nicholas

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Guest Nicholas
March 4, 2009—Nearly 200 million years ago, a meat-eating dinosaur plopped down on the edge of a lake and rested its arms, palms slightly facing inward, in an almost yoga-like pose.

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Very cool fossil, but they're drawing a lot of conclusions from one ichno.

"There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant

“Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley

>Paleontology is an evolving science.

>May your wonders never cease!

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Very cool fossil, but they're drawing a lot of conclusions from one ichno.

I agree, who's to say that this was not an injured animal or one with a pathology that made the arms do that.

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Very cool fossil, but they're drawing a lot of conclusions from one ichno.
I agree, who's to say that this was not an injured animal or one with a pathology that made the arms do that.

i agree and disagree with you guys at the same time.

Yes, there were some bold assumptions made based on one trace fossil. But this is how assumptions in paleontology are made and theories are born. Much bolder assumptions are made based on even scarcer bone evidence all the time. One new unusual bone found can overthrow the current understanding of animal locomotion, posture, descendance or evolution. In the absence of other evidence, a single bone evidence is considered enough to draw some far fetched conclusions.

I don't see how this case is different. In this case , in fact , they have two manus impressions, both turned ( which probably rules out the pathology or injury, since the probability of that happening to both hands would be slim).

I would be more careful as to classifying the animal as a meat eater. While attribution to meat eating dinosaurs is usually made based on the shape of the track, some meat eator's tracks and herbivore tracks look very similar, especially in the North East where I collect. However, they may have found many good qualioty tracks and are able to classify the track with a high probability.

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...there were some bold assumptions made based on one trace fossil...

I enjoy the speculation as much as the next guy; like you said, this is how new theories take shape.

The assertion that (to me) seemed too bold was: "In fact, the newfound dinosaur would have dislocated its shoulders if it kept its palms down...". "In fact" is pretty strong wording, given the circumstances.

"There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant

“Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley

>Paleontology is an evolving science.

>May your wonders never cease!

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I enjoy the speculation as much as the next guy; like you said, this is how new theories take shape.

The assertion that (to me) seemed too bold was: "In fact, the newfound dinosaur would have dislocated its shoulders if it kept its palms down...". "In fact" is pretty strong wording, given the circumstances.

Yes, I agree, that statement didnlt feel right with me either. They didn't talk about any evidence that would lead to that strong statement

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