Dinosaur skulls cast light on new species

Published: 9:00PM GMT twenty-three February 2010

Dr Brooks Britt with the skull of an Abydosaurus Photo: PA

Abydosaurus was a sort of sauropod, a organisation of outrageous plant-eating dinosaurs - together with Brachiosaurus - that had light skulls since their head was at the finish of a prolonged neck.

Complete skulls were recovered for usually eight of some-more than 120 sorts of sauropod so researchers were repelled and anxious when they found 4 Abydosaurus skulls - together with dual sum - at a chase in the Dinosaur National Monument in eastern Utah, US.

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Dr Brooks Britt, a palaeontologist at Brigham Young University who worked on the project, said: ""Their heads are built lighter than reptile skulls since they lay approach out at the finish of really prolonged necks.

""Instead of thick skeleton fused together, sauropod skulls are done of thin skeleton firm together by soft tissue.

""Usually it falls detached fast after genocide and disintegrates.""

Most of what scientists know about sauropods is from the neck down but the newly detected skulls supposing a couple of clues about how the largest land animals to ramble the Earth ate their food.

Dr Britt said: ""They didn"t gnaw their food; they usually grabbed it and swallowed it.

""The skulls are usually one two-hundredth of sum physique volume and don"t have an blow up nipping system.""

Dr Britt pronounced Abydosaurus is thought to have lived 105 million years ago as crystals of the vegetable zircon inside of the surrounding stone have been antiquated to that period.

Bone research suggests Brachiosaurus, that grew to around twenty-five metres prolonged and lived 45 million years progressing than Abydosaurus, is thought to have been the closest relative.

Dr Britt pronounced the skulls were from juveniles that were estimated to be around twenty-five feet (7.6 metres) prolonged but alternative bones, together with vertebrae, indicate the grown up Abydosaurus were ""substantially larger"".

In the Jurassic Period - in between 206 to 144 million years ago - sauropods showed a far-reaching range of tooth shapes but by the finish of the dinosaur age - around 65 million years ago - all sauropods had narrow, pencil-like teeth.

The fossils were excavated from the Cedar Mountain Formation in Dinosaur National Monument nearby Vernal, Utah.

The skulls are on proxy arrangement at Brigham Young University"s Museum of Palaeontology, in Provo, Utah, where visitors can additionally watch students hope for alternative skeleton from Abydosaurus.

A paper about the find was published in the biography Naturwissenschaften today.

The new dinosaur class was since the name Abydosaurus mcintoshi.

The skull was found in a chase unaware the Green River so took the name Abydos from the Greek name for the city along the Nile River (now El Araba el Madfuna) that was the funeral place of the head and neck of the Egyptian God Osiris. Sauros is the Greek word for lizard.

The mcintoshi honours the American palaeontologist Jack McIntosh for his contributions to the investigate of sauropods.