Post by DinosaurMichael on Apr 6, 2012 6:07:21 GMT -5
Woolly Rhinoceros - Coelodonta antiquitatis
The woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis) is an extinct species of rhinoceros that was common throughout Europe and Asia during the Pleistocene epoch and survived the last glacial period. The genus name Coelodonta means "cavity tooth". The woolly rhinoceros was a member of the Pleistocene megafauna. The external appearance of woolly rhinos is known from mummified individuals from Siberia as well as cave paintings. An adult woolly rhinoceros was 3 to 3.8 metres (10 to 12.5 feet) in length, and 2 to 3 tons on average, but they could probably grow to 4.3 - 4.4 meters (over 14 feet) at the largest.[citation needed] The woolly rhinoceros could grow up to be 2 meters tall. Two horns on the skull were made of keratin, the anterior horn being 2 feet in length, with a smaller horn between its eyes. It had thick, long fur, small ears, short, thick legs, and a stocky body. Cave paintings suggest a wide dark band between the front and hind legs, but it is not universal and identification of rhinoceros as woolly rhinoceros is uncertain. As the last and most derived member of the Pleistocene rhinoceros lineage, the woolly rhinoceros was supremely well adapted to its environment. Stocky limbs and thick woolly pelage made it well suited to the steppe-tundra environment prevalent across the Palearctic ecozone during the Pleistocene glaciations. Like the vast majority of rhinoceroses, the body plan of the woolly rhinoceros adhered to the conservative morphology, like the first rhinoceroses seen in the late Eocene. Its shape was known only from prehistoric cave drawings until a completely preserved specimen (missing only the fur and hooves) was discovered in a tar pit in Starunia, Poland. The specimen, an adult female, is now on display in the Polish Academy of Sciences' Museum of Natural History in Kraków. The woolly rhinoceros used its horns for defensive purposes and to attract mates. During Greenland Stadial 2 (the Last Glacial Maximum) the North Sea did not exist as sea levels were up to 125 metres (410 ft) lower than today. The woolly rhinoceros roamed much of Northern Europe and was common in the then cold, arid desert that is southern England and the North Sea today. Its geographical range expanded and contracted with the alternating cold and warm cycles, forcing populations to migrate as glaciers receded. The woolly rhinoceros co-existed with woolly mammoths and several other extinct larger mammals. A close relative, the Elasmotherium had a more southern range. Recently, the oldest known woolly rhinoceros fossil was discovered from 3.6 million years in the Himalayas on the cold Tibetan Plateau, suggesting it existed there during a period of general climate warmth around the earth. It is believed that they migrated from there to northern Asia and Europe when the Ice Age began.
Rajasaurus - Rajasaurus narmadensis
Rajasaurus (meaning "Prince" or "Princely lizard") is a genus of carnivorous abelisaurian theropod dinosaur with an unusual head crest. Between 1982 and 1984, its fossilized bones were discovered by Suresh Srivastava of the Geological Survey of India (GSI). Excavated from the Narmada River valley in Rahioli in the Kheda district of Gujarat, India, the find was announced as a new genus of dinosaur by American and Indian scientists on August 13, 2003. Paleontologists Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago, Jeff Wilson of the University of Michigan, and Srivastava worked together as an Indo–American group to study the Narmada River fossils. The fossils represented the partial skeleton of the new species Rajasaurus narmadensis, which means "princely lizard from the Narmada Valley." The fossilized bones of Rajasaurus have also been found in the upriver region of the Narmada, at Jabalpur, in the state of Madhya Pradesh. Rajasaurus was an abelisaurid, a member of a group of theropod predators known to have lived only on landmasses that were part of the supercontinent Gondwana, such as Africa, India, Madagascar, and South America. Rajasaurus closely resembles Majungasaurus, a contemporary abelisaur from Madagascar, an island that had separated from the Indian landmass about 20 million years earlier. It was found to be an abelisaurid through a phylogenetic analysis of anatomical characteristics, and was described as a carnotaurine abelisaurid (the subfamily including Carnotaurus) because of the configuration of its nasal bones and its possession of a growth ("excrescence") on its frontal bone. Rajasaurus is distinguished from other genera by its single nasal-frontal horn, the elongated proportions of its supratemporal fenestrae (holes in the upper rear of the skull), and the form of the ilia (principle bones of the hip) which feature a transverse ridge separating the brevis shelf from the hip joint. Rajasaurus was identified from a partial skeleton including a well–preserved skull (with a complete braincase and 70% of the rest of the skull bones recovered), hip bones and parts of the hind legs, backbone and tail. This specimen, GSI 21141/1–33, serves as the type specimen of the genus and species. Rajasaurus measured about 7.6–9 m (24.9–29.5 ft) long, 2.4 m (7.9 ft) in height, and weighed about 3 to 4 tons. The skull was short, measuring 60 cm (23.6 in) in length, and bore a distinctive low rounded horn. This horn is made up of outgrowths from the nasal and frontal bones.
The woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis) is an extinct species of rhinoceros that was common throughout Europe and Asia during the Pleistocene epoch and survived the last glacial period. The genus name Coelodonta means "cavity tooth". The woolly rhinoceros was a member of the Pleistocene megafauna. The external appearance of woolly rhinos is known from mummified individuals from Siberia as well as cave paintings. An adult woolly rhinoceros was 3 to 3.8 metres (10 to 12.5 feet) in length, and 2 to 3 tons on average, but they could probably grow to 4.3 - 4.4 meters (over 14 feet) at the largest.[citation needed] The woolly rhinoceros could grow up to be 2 meters tall. Two horns on the skull were made of keratin, the anterior horn being 2 feet in length, with a smaller horn between its eyes. It had thick, long fur, small ears, short, thick legs, and a stocky body. Cave paintings suggest a wide dark band between the front and hind legs, but it is not universal and identification of rhinoceros as woolly rhinoceros is uncertain. As the last and most derived member of the Pleistocene rhinoceros lineage, the woolly rhinoceros was supremely well adapted to its environment. Stocky limbs and thick woolly pelage made it well suited to the steppe-tundra environment prevalent across the Palearctic ecozone during the Pleistocene glaciations. Like the vast majority of rhinoceroses, the body plan of the woolly rhinoceros adhered to the conservative morphology, like the first rhinoceroses seen in the late Eocene. Its shape was known only from prehistoric cave drawings until a completely preserved specimen (missing only the fur and hooves) was discovered in a tar pit in Starunia, Poland. The specimen, an adult female, is now on display in the Polish Academy of Sciences' Museum of Natural History in Kraków. The woolly rhinoceros used its horns for defensive purposes and to attract mates. During Greenland Stadial 2 (the Last Glacial Maximum) the North Sea did not exist as sea levels were up to 125 metres (410 ft) lower than today. The woolly rhinoceros roamed much of Northern Europe and was common in the then cold, arid desert that is southern England and the North Sea today. Its geographical range expanded and contracted with the alternating cold and warm cycles, forcing populations to migrate as glaciers receded. The woolly rhinoceros co-existed with woolly mammoths and several other extinct larger mammals. A close relative, the Elasmotherium had a more southern range. Recently, the oldest known woolly rhinoceros fossil was discovered from 3.6 million years in the Himalayas on the cold Tibetan Plateau, suggesting it existed there during a period of general climate warmth around the earth. It is believed that they migrated from there to northern Asia and Europe when the Ice Age began.
Rajasaurus - Rajasaurus narmadensis
Rajasaurus (meaning "Prince" or "Princely lizard") is a genus of carnivorous abelisaurian theropod dinosaur with an unusual head crest. Between 1982 and 1984, its fossilized bones were discovered by Suresh Srivastava of the Geological Survey of India (GSI). Excavated from the Narmada River valley in Rahioli in the Kheda district of Gujarat, India, the find was announced as a new genus of dinosaur by American and Indian scientists on August 13, 2003. Paleontologists Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago, Jeff Wilson of the University of Michigan, and Srivastava worked together as an Indo–American group to study the Narmada River fossils. The fossils represented the partial skeleton of the new species Rajasaurus narmadensis, which means "princely lizard from the Narmada Valley." The fossilized bones of Rajasaurus have also been found in the upriver region of the Narmada, at Jabalpur, in the state of Madhya Pradesh. Rajasaurus was an abelisaurid, a member of a group of theropod predators known to have lived only on landmasses that were part of the supercontinent Gondwana, such as Africa, India, Madagascar, and South America. Rajasaurus closely resembles Majungasaurus, a contemporary abelisaur from Madagascar, an island that had separated from the Indian landmass about 20 million years earlier. It was found to be an abelisaurid through a phylogenetic analysis of anatomical characteristics, and was described as a carnotaurine abelisaurid (the subfamily including Carnotaurus) because of the configuration of its nasal bones and its possession of a growth ("excrescence") on its frontal bone. Rajasaurus is distinguished from other genera by its single nasal-frontal horn, the elongated proportions of its supratemporal fenestrae (holes in the upper rear of the skull), and the form of the ilia (principle bones of the hip) which feature a transverse ridge separating the brevis shelf from the hip joint. Rajasaurus was identified from a partial skeleton including a well–preserved skull (with a complete braincase and 70% of the rest of the skull bones recovered), hip bones and parts of the hind legs, backbone and tail. This specimen, GSI 21141/1–33, serves as the type specimen of the genus and species. Rajasaurus measured about 7.6–9 m (24.9–29.5 ft) long, 2.4 m (7.9 ft) in height, and weighed about 3 to 4 tons. The skull was short, measuring 60 cm (23.6 in) in length, and bore a distinctive low rounded horn. This horn is made up of outgrowths from the nasal and frontal bones.
