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Tag: reptile
Rare, exceptionally preserved fossil reveals lifestyle of ancient armor-plated reptile
2017-06-30 06:00:00| LifeSciencesWorld
[NEWS] IMAGE: This is a life reconstruction of Eusaurosphargis dalsassoi based on new specimen PIMUZ A/III 4380. Credit: (Credits: Beat Scheffold; Palaeontological Institute and Museum, University of Zurich, Switzerland). An exceptionally-preserved fossil from …
Tags: rare
lifestyle
ancient
reveals
Bizarre new species of extinct reptile shows dinosaurs copied body, skull shapes
2016-10-03 12:00:00| LifeSciencesWorld
[NEWS] Iconic dinosaur shapes were present for at least a hundred million years on our planet in animals before those dinosaurs themselves actually appeared. In a study in the Sept. 22 issue of Current Biology, a multi-institutional team of paleontologists including Virginia Tech College of Science researcher…
Tags: body
shows
species
shapes
230-million-year-old Texas reptile had bizarre 'dinosaurian' features
2016-10-03 12:00:00| LifeSciencesWorld
[NEWS] A newly described species of extinct reptile that roamed in Texas more than 200 million years ago had a strikingly dome-shaped head, much like that of dinosaurs that lived 100 million years or so later. Like the wings of pterosaurs and birds and the limblessness of snakes and some amphibians, the study reported in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on September 22 offers an example of convergent evolution between distantly related species of vertebrates. “We…
Tags: features
texas
bizarre
reptile
Researchers name a new species of reptile from 212 million years ago
2016-09-08 12:00:00| LifeSciencesWorld
[NEWS] An extinct reptile related to crocodiles that lived 212 million years ago in present day New Mexico has been named as a new species, Vivaron haydeni, in a paper published this week by Virginia Tech's Department of Geosciences researchers. Leading the paper that names the previously unknown animal is undergraduate researcher Emily Lessner of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, a double major in the departments of …
Tags: years
ago
million
researchers
'Hammerhead' creature was world's first plant-eating marine reptile
2016-05-06 12:00:00| LifeSciencesWorld
[NEWS] In 2014, scientists discovered a bizarre fossil—a crocodile-sized sea-dwelling reptile that lived 242 million years ago in what today is southern China. Its head was poorly preserved, but it seemed to have a flamingo-like beak. But in a paper published today in Science Advances, paleontologists reveal what was really going on—that “beak” is actually part of a hammerhead-shaped jaw apparatus, which it used to feed on plants on the ocean floor. It's the …
Tags: marine
worlds
creature
hammerhead