New Dinosaur Was A Pumped-Up Vegetarian

Fossil Discovery Gives Paleontologists Clues About What The Earth Was Like Long Ago

(AP)  The duck-billed dinosaur was one of the world's most imposing herbivores with as many as 800 teeth and a body that could help it knock down trees.

Utah scientists have discovered one near the Arizona border that's even more threatening.

"It really is like the Arnold Schwarzenegger of dinosaurs - it's all pumped up," said Scott Sampson, curator of the Utah Museum of Natural History.

The newly named Gryposaurus monumentensis, or hook-beaked lizard from the monument, was discovered in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in 2002 by a Pennsylvania furniture maker who volunteered to work at the site. Details about the dinosaur, including its name were published in the Oct. 3 edition of Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.

At least 30 feet long and 10 feet tall with a robust jaw and thick bones, the 75-million-year old animal was like a duck-billed dinosaur on steroids, said paleontologist Terry Gates.

"It's basically the Cretaceous version of a weed-whacker," he said. "You have a very formidable herbivore."

Although paleontologists said Wednesday that the dinosaur could eat just about any plant it wanted, scientists still aren't sure what it dined on.

Southern Utah is a rocky desert with few trees today, but it was a much different place 75 million years ago.

At the time, North America was divided down the middle by an ocean and southern Utah looked similar to Louisiana, Gates said.

"It's very humid and wet, with lots of ponds and lots of rivers and creeks flowing through it. It was very lush," he said.

The area was a haven for dinosaurs. Gryposaurus monumentensis is one of several new species found in Grand Staircase in recent years.

"I knew this thing would be an important piece of a much larger puzzle we're trying to solve. Grand Staircase is one of the last untapped treasure troves," Sampson said.

The discovery of new species, including Gryposaurus monumentensis, will help scientists understand more about what the earth was like millions of years ago, he said.

Sampson said duck-billed dinosaurs can be found throughout the northwestern part of North America, just like many other animals such as deer. But he said scientists don't find different species of deer close together as they have with the duck-billed dinosaur. The new version of the dinosaur has a smaller skull that allowed it to apply more force to what it was eating.

"By shortening the skull, you can get more power per bite. The shrinking of the skull and the robustness of the jaw and snout all lead me to think this guy was made to eat," Gates said.

However, the duck-billed dinosaur's teeth and size would not have been much of a defense against area predators such as the tyrannosaur. Scientists also aren't sure if the new dinosaur was a loner or traveled in herds for protection because so few skeletal remains have been found.

It's one of several questions scientists are hoping to answer, along with how and why different species of the duck-billed dinosaur developed.

"To find an animal so closely related to something up in Montana and so close by, we would've expected it to be same type of Gryposaurus. The fact it isn't raises some eyebrows," he said.

"This animal, it answered a number of questions. It also poses a number of others."

[actornaught]

"You lose an argument, so you resort to attacking Christianity"

2 lies in one sentence. Only inside your s''ick little obsessed mind...

[actornaught]

What do you call someone who claims to be christian but:

Is a xenophobe.

Is a warmonger.

Prostelytizes with hate speech.

Is against children''s healthcare.

Answer: hypocrite, hypocrite, hypocrite.

Oh yes, and a hypocrite.

[actornaught]

And of course the s''ick mind ''proves'' it''s not obsessed by typing typing typing...

This article is NOT about evolution, btw.

[actornaught]

Page after page of off-topic religious rantings under an article about fossils.

Come on folks, stop egging on a sad s''ick mind.

[lloydbest1]

"...Dinosaurs existed right along side humans..."
Sorry, your waking dream state has crossfired your memory with the funny papers,

Posted by actornaught at 10:49 AM : Oct 04, 2007

Actually "singingrick" is quite correct (gasp!!) Dinosaurs did coexist among humans; still do. They''re called birds.

Moving forward.....It is POINTLESS to argue with the singer. No one will ever convince him that opposing viewpoints are even valid let alone admit to the possibility his might need modification.
Nggr, go ahead and try to cram some sense into rick''s head if you feel you must but be aware he''s goading. your angry reaction to his pontification is just the thing he seeks out. Maybe it validates him, I don''t know but I think he enjoys being a target for other peoples'' scorn. My advice is to ignore him.
Finally, faith is the belief in the unproven. There''s no need to justify it. There is also no need to make a public spectacle of your piety (anyone we know here do that?). Both Jesus and the apostle Paul warned against this. My own relationship with the Lord is strictly my own business and I don''t spend a lot of energy trying to convince people that I am the sole custodian of truth.
By the way isn''t this thread supposed to enable comment on an uber-vegetarian monster big enough to need its own zip code?

[nggr]

and finally,
just because you dont understand how the world really works, you have to turn to nonsense that you can understand. that doesn''t mean that you can pass off solid scientific principles as conspiracies. without science, you would not have your computer to impose your dunb beliefs onto everyone. without science, your father probably would have sacrificed your fat a$$ to god when you were a defensless baby. without science, your wifes fother could had justified letting drunken men rape and kill her insted of fighting his drinking buddy ( an actual bible occurance, sanctioned by the "lord")
so without this science that you hate so much, you would not survive. because with out the technology developed by it, your weak manicured fat pencil pushing a$$ would have been dead a long time ago.
so you should not bite the real hand that gives you life. cessarian sections and modern western medicine.
you should be more grateful of the things that keep you alive, instead of saying its a conspiracy, that all scientists propel the stories so they have jobs, those statements that you have made are the most ignorant statements i have ever seen in print, right after " main kampt" by hitler.

[nggr]

Again, call me as many childish names as you''''d like nggr, but it won''''t change a thing about the Truth in the end when you''''re standing before God wondering why you didn''''t open up your ears to us Christians when we were simply trying to show you the Truth, who is Jesus Christ.

Posted by singinrick at 04:36 PM : Oct 05, 2007

i will call you names, you have mental syphillis and are more than mildly retarted. you cant comprehend critical thinking and logic, so you get angry with others who can. and this facilitates your beliefs. because the complexity of the world overwhelms you grossly undersized brain, the only thing you can turn to that makes sense to you are ancient stories written by people who thought a stolen story (the epic of gilgamesh) could be passed off and plagerized and noone would ever find out. let me ask you this, BAAl was a god of the caananites, the old testament spoke extensivley of him, this gives him relevance, so do you believe baal existed? you havent thought about this i imagine, because your relationship with the bible is to read and comprehend only those thinks you understand. which is obviously very little.

[nggr]

It''''s not my fault you reject Him as Truth. That''''s all on you pal
Posted by singinrick at 04:36 PM : Oct 05, 2007

actually it is your fault, people just like you at least. i bought into these creation myths when i was a kid, but when i met people who treat otheres like you do, and try to spit evil lies as if they had substance, and had no tolerance for any others interperetation and beliefs, my eyes were opened to the truth, that people like you are the reason wars are fought, fundamentalist a$$holes that are intolerant of others. i can tolerate christians, most of my wonderful family are. i cant tolerate self rithcous di*k faces like you.
you ruin what the bible is really about. its a shame.

[nggr]

Fact No. Four - Martyrdom of the Disciples:

Would you die for something you knew was not true? The disciples, just like you, would not have died for a lie. So why did most of the disciples go through all the hassles and pain of spreading the gospel to the nations? The only human or logical reason would be that they witnessed the resurrected Jesus, just as they wrote in the New Testament. Death, to the early apostles, was a passage from this world into the presence of God.

Posted by singinrick at 02:07 PM : Oct 05, 2007

this assertion is a patent lie and a strw man argument.
so by your rational the 911 hijackers were martyrs, and justified. because "Would you die for something you knew was not true?" so because these hijackers believed this was true, that makes it true, according to your 2nd grade logic. you endorse terrorism too then. because if someone is willing to martyr themselves for their belifs then that MUST make what they believe in the truth. so which is it?
dont answer that, i know what you''ll say. and i wont make any sense.

[nggr]

"but i''''ll never believe that torture and rape are right, so i''''ll never belive the bible is the word of god. you are a waste of space. and yes, you are ruining america, you and your ilk. you suck."

Posted by nggr at 04:46 PM : Oct 04, 2007

this was the origonal post that you took out of context. you purposly left out the beginning, which states that the bible endorses torture and rape, which it does. and since i think BOTH of those things are criminal and immoral, i dont believe the bible is the word of god. you and your kind take SO MANY THINGS out of context to make yourselves seem correct. when you arent correct, about anything, ever.
pathetic desperate attempt to try to marginalize my argument. and it also says that not only do you endore torture and rape, you want people like that to run the couyntry. which they are, thanks to ignorant uneducated people like yourself.