home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
TIME: Almanac 1990
/
1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
/
time
/
111389
/
11138900.031
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1990-09-19
|
2KB
|
27 lines
SCIENCE, Page 75Oldest DinosaurA stunning discovery provides clues to the course of evolution
Imagine a monster with the teeth of a shark, the talons of an
eagle, the neck of an antelope and the hindquarters of an ostrich.
A mythological chimera? Not at all. "I stepped down into this
gulch," recounts University of Chicago paleontologist Paul Sereno,
"took 25 steps and screamed." Directly ahead, atop a sandstone
knoll, lay the full skeleton of a 2-meter-long (about 6 ft.)
carnivore. It proved to be the most ancient dinosaur discovered to
date.
Last week, at the meeting of the Society of Vertebrate
Paleontologists in Austin, Sereno for the first time revealed
details of the find, made last year by a joint U.S.-Argentine
expedition. The dinosaur was named Herrerasaurus, after Victorino
Herrera, the goat farmer who first led scientists to the area in
northwestern Argentina where the bones were found. Smaller than
Apatosaurus and less fearsome than Tyrannosaurus, this dinosaur
flourished 230 million years ago during the unique period when most
of the earth's landmasses were gathered into a single
supercontinent, now called Pangea. Until the most recent find, only
a smattering of Herrerasaurus bones had been unearthed. Now
scientists will be able to look over the complete skeleton for
important evolutionary clues. While Herrerasaurus is not the long
sought common ancestor of all dinosaurs, notes Sereno, "it's close
-- and maybe it's as close as we will ever get."