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dragino
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March 2015
defenderkairyu
Acrocanthosaurus atokensis
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http://i.imgur.com/LhHeDo4.png
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Post by dragino on Feb 25, 2017 1:35:50 GMT
It may have been discovered and described four months ago, but this is still a pretty damn cool discovery. The article is here: "The Triassic was a time of evolutionary innovation and experimentation in vertebrate body plans. In the time following the Permo-Triassic extinction, the largest mass extinction in Earth’s history, there was an explosive radiation of the surviving lineages unconstrained by competition from other organisms. Triopticus primus, a newly named archosauromorph from the Triassic of Texas, shows just how strange some of this evolutionary experimentation could be.
Triopticus is known from a single fossil found in the Upper Triassic Otis Chalk Formation of West Texas. The fossil consists of a partial skull roof, preserving the upper edges of the eye sockets, the complete brain case, and the articulation with the first neck vertebra. Almost all of the bone in the skull roof is extraordinarily thick and ornamented with knobs and bumps, except for a point directly above the brain where there is a narrow “pit” that resembles a third eye socket. There are five distinct enlargements or “bosses,” including a central forehead dome, a thick ridge over each eye, and a thick ridge over each ear. The pit is behind the dome and between the four ridge-like bosses. The fragment is approximately 10cm (4 inches) long and 9cm (3.5 inches) wide."
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