In this picture provided by Gaston Design, Inc., Utah State Paleontologist James Kirkland stands near a full-size cast of the newly discovered dinosaur Falcarius utahensis. (AP Photo/Gaston Design, Inc.) Scientists have caught a dinosaur in the act of evolving from meat-eater to vegetarian.
The two-legged, feathered creature ate plants, but its bones show that the transition from its carnivorous ancestors was still in progress.
All plant-eating dinosaurs were ultimately descended from a meat-eater, and switchovers to plant-eating occurred several times. The newly discovered species, which lived 125 million years ago in what is now Utah, could help scientists understand details of how the changeovers took place.
It’s “our first really good case of a dinosaur in the midst of shifting from the meat-eating body to a plant-eating one,” said an expert not involved in the discovery, Thomas R. Holtz Jr. of the University of Maryland.
“It’s definitely eating a substantial amount of plants, (but) we still see the original imprint of meat-eating upon it.”
The creature, with 5-inch claws on its outsized hands, measured some 12 feet from its snout to the tip of its long skinny tail. It stood just over 3 feet tall at the hip and could apparently reach about five feet off the ground with its long neck to munch leaves or fruit, said Utah state paleontologist James Kirkland.
He describes the creature in Thursday’s issue of the British journal Nature with Lindsay Zanno and Scott Sampson of the Utah Museum of Natural History at the University of Utah, among others.
They dubbed it Falcarius utahensis. Bones from hundreds or maybe thousands of these dinosaurs were discovered at a two-acre dig site in east-central Utah, south of the town of Green River. Nobody knows why they gathered there or what killed them, Kirkland said.
But analysis revealed that Falcarius was the earliest known member of a bizarre-looking group of plant-eaters called therizinosaurs (pronounced THAY-rih-ZY-no-sores.) Found mostly in Asia, the barrel-bodied creatures waddled upright like Godzilla or “a pot-bellied bear,” Kirkland said.
Falcarius, very early in its evolution into the therizinosaur body type, retained the rather horizontal posture and built-for-speed legs of its meat-eating ancestors. But it had already lost the flattened and serrated teeth used to tear meat and acquired the smaller, more densely packed teeth of a vegetarian, Zanno said.
It also showed some change toward the larger gut needed to digest plant material rather than meat, as well as a lengthened neck and smaller head associated with eating plants, she said.
Holtz said Falcarius still had fairly slender proportions overall rather than the barrel body of later therizinosaurs. “This one could probably move fairly quickly,” he said, whereas its more evolved relatives “would have had problems hunting things faster than a tree.”
Kirkland and Zanno said they suspect Falcarius probably ate some meat in addition to plants.
“I wouldn’t doubt this thing would eat a lizard or two in a pinch,” Kirkland said.
all these recent dinosaur finds are making me so happy.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Species stops eating meat.
Species goes extinct.
Coincidence? Or timely warning? Posted by jebus202 (Member # 2524) on :
Oh so now scientists are back-tracking again are they?
When are they going to just admit that all these fossils they've found are really chicken bones?
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
I was gonna post that Dag =P
Posted by Bambiraptor (Member # 7874) on :
Feathered dinosaurs?
Interesting.
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
Ya know - I don't know that I believe the whole concept of "change over."
Its not like a dinosaur stood up and said, "ya know, I think I'm going for a nice, fresh salad."
I'm equally sure the other dinos around him didn't stand up and say "that could really hit the scale right about now. Let's go!"
-Trevor
Posted by jebus202 (Member # 2524) on :
Yea, TM, I firmly believe they all stayed sitting down.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
Well, interestingly enough this giant chicken maybe have been exactly that, as the friday-evening gathering at hatrack.ca found out in the feathered dinosaur exhibit.
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
I want the biggest jar of honey mustard you can find...now.
Mmmm...chicken fingers...
Which raises a silly question - do chicken strips include the feather dance?
-Trevor
Posted by UofUlawguy (Member # 5492) on :
Note that this dinosaur was discovered in Utah, as memorialized in its name.
Just one more cool thing about the state of Utah. They've got tons of dinosaurs, just waiting to be dug up. I've been out to one of the biggest dino quarries, Cleveland-Lloyd, and it is really, really cool.
Almost doesn't seem fair that within such a relatively small area they've got both some of the best dino fossil grounds and some of the best American archeological remains. Anyone passing through should seriously consider dropping by the Prehistory Museum in Price, which has one huge wing devoted to dinos and other large fossils (e.g. mammoth, sloth) and another huge wing devoted to ancient Native American artifacts, all discovered within a reasonable drive from the museum itself.
Posted by jebus202 (Member # 2524) on :
It is cool that Utah has so many dinosaurs.
But then, Utah also has many mormons, so it makes sense that there would be a balance.
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all these recent dinosaur finds are making me so happy.
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