See other Science/Tech Articles
Title: Rewriting prehistory: Dinosaurs ate grass
Source:
AP
URL Source: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/ ... 117-1435-dinograss-eaters.html
Published: Nov 18, 2005
Author: Lauran Neergaard
Post Date: 2005-11-18 14:13:19 by A K A Stone
Keywords: prehistory:, Rewriting, Dinosaurs
Views: 928
Comments: 81
WASHINGTON – Imagine dinosaur terrain – full of ferns and palms, right? Better add some grass to that picture. A new discovery debunks the theory that grasses didn't emerge until long after the dinosaurs died off. Fossilized dung tells the story: The most prominent plant-eating dinosaurs were digesting different varieties of grass between 65 million and 71 million years ago, researchers report Friday in the journal Science. Advertisement Click Me! The earliest grass fossils ever found were about 55 million years old – from the post-dinosaur era. It's a big surprise for scientists, who had never really looked for evidence of grass in dino diets before. After all, grass fossils aside, those sauropods – the behemoths with the long necks and tails and small heads – didn't have the special kind of teeth needed to grind up abrasive blades. "Most people would not have fathomed that they would eat grasses," noted lead researcher Caroline Stromberg of the Swedish Museum of Natural History. Stromberg and a team of paleobotanists from India analyzed sauropod dung – the scientific term is coprolites – found in central India. The coprolites contained microscopic particles of silica called phytoliths, which form inside plant cells in distinctive patterns that essentially act as a signature. Amid the expected plants were numerous phytoliths certain to have come from the grass family, report Stromberg and Vandana Prasad of India's Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany. They included relatives of rice and bamboo and forage-type grasses. They didn't eat a lot of grass, the evidence shows. But grasses must have originated considerably earlier, well over 80 million years ago, for such a wide variety to have evolved and spread to the Indian subcontinent in time to be munched by sauropods, they concluded. "These remarkable results will force reconsideration of many long-standing assumptions" about dinosaur ecology, wrote Dolores Piperno and Hans-Dieter Sues of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in an accompanying review. Beyond the great curiosity about dinosaur life, the discovery has implications about the coevolution of this huge plant family – there are about 10,000 separate grass species – with other plant-eaters, Piperno explained. Indeed, a mysterious early mammal that roamed among the dinosaurs had more suitable teeth for grazing, raising the possibility of an early adaptation, the researchers note.
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 48.
#2. To: A K A Stone (#0)
So what this is saying that ALL dinosaurs were grass eaters.. Now consider this.. if God created them then would He not have created them perfectly? Why would God give some dinosaurs canine teeth which would enable them to eat meat best rather than teeth that would make them eat grass in not the most efficient way? Does this say God made an error?
Apparently their is grass in their shit. So I guess their teeth worked fine. With my teeth I can eat meat or vegetables.
Of course you're a troll, but let's go ahead with this anyway. Other dinosaur shit has bones. But also, you posted an article last week claiming the Earth is appx 6,000 years old because your religion trys to fit a square peg into a round hole. Fine. Now this article says "between 65 million and 71 million years ago". Which is it? Of course there were herbivore dinosaurs, there were carnivores ones which also existed prior to man. This blows the idea of original sin, as told in Genesis to shit. You can find a new source of guilt because this one doesn't hold water. With my teeth I can eat meat or vegetables.< Because you have canine teeth for tearing as well as flatter teeth for grinding. T-rex had all sharp teeth. Not a grass eater.
Im sure T-REX could have eaten meat after the curse. The world was changed then. Perhaps part of the curse.
So before the curse when animals didn't die, God have commanded them to be fruitful and multiply, now realizing the Garden of Eden was a finite area (as defined later in Genesis) wouldn't that amount to a population problem? If God would have created Malthus earlier, could he have been warned of this problem?
#49. To: Dude Lebowski (#48)
Who says they would have been confined to the garden of Eden when the population grew. Interesting question though. But we can only assume what the outcome would have been.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#3. To: Zipporah (#2)
#41. To: A K A Stone (#3)
Apparently their is grass in their shit. So I guess their teeth worked fine.
#44. To: Dude Lebowski (#41)
T-rex had all sharp teeth. Not a grass eater.
#48. To: A K A Stone (#44)
Im sure T-REX could have eaten meat after the curse. The world was changed then. Perhaps part of the curse.
Replies to Comment # 48. So before the curse when animals didn't die, God have commanded them to be fruitful and multiply, now realizing the Garden of Eden was a finite area (as defined later in Genesis) wouldn't that amount to a population problem? If God would have created Malthus earlier, could he have been warned of this problem?
End Trace Mode for Comment # 48.