77 mn years old dino claw prints found in Utah
July 24th, 2010 - 5:26 pm ICT by ANILondon, July 24 (ANI): An ancient ‘crime scene’ in Utah has revealed evidence of a dinosaur in the act of preying on a small mammal.
A 77-million-year-old dinosaur claw mark and scratched-out digging traces were discovered next to a series of mammal burrows in Dixie National Forest by Edward Simpson, a geologist at Kutztown University in Pennsylvania, and his colleagues.
“It appears a dinosaur was digging down and trapping rodent-like mammals in a similar way to coyotes hunting around prairie dog burrows today,” New Scientist quoted Simpson as saying.
The size and curvature of the claw indicates that it was a maniraptoran theropod - carnivorous dinosaurs including velociraptors and the ancestors of modern birds among their ranks.
The traces were preserved when sand was suddenly dumped onto the burrows during a flood.
The find is published in Geology. (ANI)
- First parrot-sized dino with only one finger discovered in China - Jan 25, 2011
- One-fingered dinosaur unearthed in China - Jan 25, 2011
- Aussie dinos hid underground to survive extreme cold and predators - Sep 28, 2009
- Were the ancestors of T.rex vegetarian? - Dec 21, 2010
- Prairie dogs are chatterboxes - Jan 24, 2010
- Brains of birds have a dinosaur source: Study - Apr 13, 2011
- Some dinosaurs 'did most of their hunting at night' - Apr 15, 2011
- Fossils of bird-like dinosaurs discovered in Australia - May 18, 2012
- Geologists Discover New Predatory Dinosaur In Romania - Aug 31, 2010
- 350mn-yr-old, 4-legged amphibian's burrow found in Pennsylvania - Nov 10, 2010
- Dinos' evolving beaks were like 'Swiss Army knives' - Dec 21, 2010
- 'Jurassic Park' had it right - some dinos hunted by night - Apr 15, 2011
- 'Goatsucker' chupacabras monster 'is as much victim as villain' - Oct 22, 2010
- New dinosaur species found in China - Mar 20, 2010
- Prairie dogs can describe what humans look like - Jan 23, 2011
Tags: ancestors, carnivorous dinosaurs, coyotes, crime scene, curvature, dinosaur claw, dixie national forest, edward simpson, flood, geologist, geology, mammal burrows, mammals, maniraptoran, new scientist, prairie dog, prairie dog burrows, rodent, traces, velociraptors