During a scientific expedition to the Erlian Basin in Inner Mongolia, scientists found a huge theropod dinosaur fossil, and after more than two years of research, it was finally determined that it was the world's largest bird-like dinosaur fossil today, and named it Gigantotal torerlianensis.
This discovery has attracted the attention of the world. Because many of the peculiar morphological features of Diplodocus megalodons are not found in any other dinosaurs. For example, its body shape can be compared to the "big" tyrannosaurs known, even faster than some large tyrannosaurs, but it belongs to the bird's close relatives , oviraptorosaurs, and this class is mostly "pocket-sized"; it has a large body, but its lower legs are slender, and its running ability is stronger than other dinosaurs; it does not have teeth, but develops a huge beak, whether it is used to cut plants, hunt small animals or crush eggshells. Many of the bird-like features of Diplodocus and the disparity in size led to an understanding of the complexity of the evolution of dinosaurs to birds.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-center-line" > rich dinosaur fossils in the Erlian Basin</h1>
From its naming, we can know that its discovery was in the Erlian Basin of Inner Mongolia. Located at the junction of Inner Mongolia and the eastern part of Mongolia, the Erlian Basin is the world-famous late Cretaceous continental fossil producing area. On April 25, 1922, a well-known Central Asian expedition in the history of paleontological expeditions came to a saltwater lake called Salt Pond in the northwest of Erenhot, where they originally wanted to find paleontological fossils to verify the paleontologist Osborne's theory that humans originated in northeastern Asia, but by chance, they did not find paleontological fossils, but found a large number of dinosaur and mammal fossils.
The first members of the Central Asian expedition stayed in the Second Company for less than three months, after which the rest of the expedition returned to the area in 1923 and 1928. One of the most important discoveries was made in 1923, when some partially intact skeletons and many scattered fossil dinosaur bones were discovered, as well as some dinosaur eggshells. The dinosaur eggshell fossils discovered this time are the first confirmed dinosaur egg fossils in the world, so they are of great significance in the history of dinosaur research. In 1928, expeditions found four more complete dinosaur eggs in a dinosaur's nest.
In June 1959, the first Sino-Soviet joint scientific expedition team conducted an expedition to the Erlian area, and during six weeks of field work they collected a large number of fossil specimens of paleontology, and later, due to the deterioration of relations between the two countries, the joint scientific expedition was forced to stop, cooperative research was also interrupted, and fossil materials were shelved in their respective research institutes.
From 1972 to 1974, the Beijing Museum of Natural History and the Inner Mongolia Museum organized a joint expedition to conduct a scientific expedition to the Erlian area and found fossil specimens mainly duck-billed dragons.
The joint Chinese and Canadian expeditions conducted two expeditions to the Erlian area in 1988 and 1990, with many valuable discoveries, including several clutches of dinosaur eggs and a less complete eagle dragon skeleton. Two platypus fossils have also been found. However, the original source of the fossils in one of the fossil accumulation sites should be the rocks that were rolled up and piled up by bulldozers during the sino-Soviet joint scientific expedition, and after 30 years of exposure to the surface, the erosion of wind and water in nature exposed the fossils wrapped in sedimentary rocks, forming this fossil accumulation. The collection and collation of this batch of fossil materials has greatly expanded the biological species of the binary fauna.
The types of dinosaur fossils produced in the Erlian area are relatively rich. Fossil preservation is most abundant in theropod dinosaurs (dinosaurs are mainly divided into two large groups, one is sauropods, one is ornithopods, and sauropods can be divided into theropods and sauropods, and theropods are the most prosperous branches of the dinosaur family) are the most abundant, with the most abundant dinosaurs, such as the dragons, theodonosaurs, theosaurus rex, the tyrannosaurs, the sickles, plus the discovery of the two-in-achoans (belonging to the oviraptorosaurs), several large groups of theropod dinosaurs almost appeared here. In addition, some sauropod and ornithopod dinosaur fossils have been found in the Erlian area, but the richness of the genus is far less than that of theropod dinosaurs.
Dinosaur eggs have been found in several expeditions, of which the dinosaur eggs found in the 1988 expedition are the most abundant, there are 5 litters of round dinosaur eggs, each litter has 23, about 9 to 10 cm in diameter, the surface of the eggshell is smooth and flat, and it is speculated that it is a kind of bird-like dragon egg in the Erlian area.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" > dramatic discovery process</h1>
In order to conduct more in-depth and detailed research on dinosaur fossils in the Erlian area, in recent years, scientists have organized a new round of investigations on the Erlian Basin and collected a large number of dinosaur fossil specimens. One of the important findings is the discovery of the two-in-one giant thief that we mentioned at the beginning of our article. Fossil specimens of Erlian giant robbers were collected from the Late Cretaceous Erlian Formation exposed in the Erlian Basin of Inner Mongolia, dating back about 80 million years.
The discovery of the Second Great Thief is dramatic. Over the past few years, two peculiar new species of sickle-like dinosaurs and a new sauropod called Suniturus have been discovered in the Erlian region. In April 2005, Japan's national television (NHK) came to the Erlian Basin to report on the discovery of dinosaur fossils here, especially Sunit dragons. At that time, a field expedition led by Tan Lin, a paleontologist from Inner Mongolia, was also excavating dinosaur fossils here. The crew did not expect that in this Gobi Desert, it is possible to see dinosaur bone fragments exposed to the surface at any time, and filming a popular science program about the discovery of dinosaur fossils in such an environment certainly makes them very excited. The fly in the ointment is that most of the exposed fossils are smaller in size and do not match the size of Sunit dragons. At this time, the group was told that a large fossil exposed on the dry bank of the river not far away, possibly belonging to Sunit dragons.
Therefore, the film crew followed Tan Lin and Xu Xing, a researcher at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, to the riverbed to reproduce the discovery process of Sunit dragon. Tan Lin and Xu Xing slowly brushed off the weathered soft rocks covering the fossils with small brushes while introducing the discovery process and scientific value of Sunit dragons. As the fossils were gradually exposed, they soon noticed that the exposed femoral articular surfaces were apparently different from the sauropods to which Suniturus belonged, but closer to the theropods, so they asked the cameramen to stop shooting and begin a full excavation.
In the wild, because the fossil was not fully exposed, it was impossible to accurately judge the taxon to which the fossil belonged, but considering that this was obviously a huge theropod dinosaur, they initially judged that it might be a tyrannosaur fossil, because among the theropod dinosaurs of the late Cretaceous, the tyrannosaur was famous for its huge size, and the most famous tyrannosaur was the Tyrannosaurus rex that we are familiar with, but after completing the fossil repair in the laboratory, they realized that it was originally a huge oviraptor fossil.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-center-line" > resembling a tyrannosaur but a close relative of birds</h1>
Tritrendosaurus was about 8 meters long, stood more than 5 meters tall, weighed about 1400 kilograms, and was comparable in size to the famous Tyrannosaurus rex, but Tritreme belonged to the close relatives of birds, the Oviraptorosaurus, and the other genera of this group were small, feathered, and most weighed only a few kilograms. Given that Diplodocus was much larger than other oviraptorosaurs, the researchers analyzed two different sets of data to confirm the kinship of Diplodocus. Two different analyses confirmed that diplodocus belonged to the oviraptorosaur class and represented a transitional type of oviraptorosaur. Diplodocus weighed about 300 times more than its close relative, The Oviraptorosaurus, a type of oviraptor found in Liaoning, China.
Because the forelimbs and tails of oviraptorosaurs were feathered, and oviraptorosaurs had the behavior of hatching eggs, and their forelimb feathers were used to incubate eggs, scientists deduced that the giant dinosaur of Erlian Thornosaurus was also draped like a tail-winged dragon
feather. Discovering such a huge feathered animal is beyond people's imagination. The largest known feathered animal was a thunderbird weighing about 500 kilograms that lived in Australia 8 million to 6 million years ago, and the weight of the two-in-one megalopix was about 3 times that of this thunderbird. Interestingly, the Diplodocus did not have teeth, but developed a large beak. As the largest dinosaur with a bird's beak-like structure, its feeding habits are still unknown to this day, because its body structure shows both structures that represent plant-eating dinosaurs, such as the head and small neck, and also shows the structure of carnivorous dinosaurs, such as long claws. Other oviraptorosaurs ate plants, molluscs, eggs, and meat.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-center-line" > feathered and good at running</h1>
Scientists have used a variety of techniques to study diplodocus. Using the slicing method, they analyzed the microscopic features of the bones of Tritretuosaurus to obtain information about the lifespan, developmental stage and growth patterns of Tritretuosaurus. Scientists have found that fossil specimens of Diplodocus die around the age of 11, having just reached adulthood at the time of death, speculating that fully adultSaurus is much heavier than 1400 kilograms. Scientists speculate that Diplodocus used an accelerated growth pattern that grew even faster than some large tyrannosaurs. The scientists also used CT scans to look inside the spines of Tritreme, and they found that the inside of these vertebrae had spongy structures, similar to some large plant-eating sauropod dinosaurs, possibly to reduce weight.
Many of the peculiar morphological features of Diplodocus are not seen in any other dinosaurs. For example, scientists have not yet been able to confirm the function of some peculiar holes in the vertebrae of the Tritreme Tyrannosaurus, and the proportion of the hind limbs of the Tritreme Tyrannosaurus is also unusual. Generally speaking, when dinosaurs became larger, their limbs would become thicker and their distal parts would become shorter, but compared with other dinosaurs of similar size, The hind limbs and slender calves showed that it was stronger than other dinosaurs.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-center-line" > the mystery of the origin of birds and the origin of flight</h1>
The origin of birds and the origin of flight have always been the focus of debate, and there are two main hypotheses about the origin of birds: "the origin hypothesis of slotted reptiles (an ancient reptile)" and "the origin hypothesis of dinosaurs". These two hypotheses have violently collided, and both sides of the debate have written a large number of articles and books to prove their points. Proponents of the "slotted origin hypothesis" believe that dinosaurs have become quite specialized and it is impossible to evolve birds, so the ancestors of birds may only be more primitive slotted toothed species than dinosaurs; proponents of the "dinosaur origin hypothesis" believe that there are a large number of similar characteristics between dinosaurs and birds, and some small dinosaurs gradually evolved into birds and escaped the extinction of dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period and continued to survive. Due to the lack of fossil material, especially the feathers, which are important features of birds, are difficult to preserve in fossils, neither side can convince the other to accept its own views.
In the late 1990s, miracles occurred, a large number of feathered dinosaur fossils were found in the western Liaoning region of China, and the discovery of these important fossils gradually calmed down the controversy of nearly a hundred years, and almost all scientists agreed that birds evolved from dinosaurs, and dinosaurs survived on this earth in another form.
The problem of the origin of birds has been solved, and the question of the origin of birds flying, that is, how birds fly to the blue sky, has been put in front of scientists. There are also two main hypotheses about the origin of flight, one is the "origin theory of bird flying and running" and the other is the "origin theory of bird flying arboreals", and the proponents of these two hypotheses are also very controversial. Scientists who support the "origin of bird flight and running" believe that a large number of feathered dinosaurs and the most primitive birds found so far - Archaeopteryx have more developed hind limbs, that is to say, they should be good at running before they were born, and these dinosaurs gradually learned to fly in the process of continuously accelerating running and jumping. Proponents of the "bird flying arboreal origin theory" believe that birds first climb to trees, then jump and glide between trees, and gradually learn to fly in the process. They found that some small feathered dinosaurs could climb trees, these dinosaurs are very close to birds in phylogenetic development, and from a dynamic point of view, learning to fly in gliding seems to be more acceptable to everyone.
Researcher Xu Xing through the study of Zhao's small raptor and Gu's small raptor and other long-feathered dinosaurs that are very close to the bird form, found that their foot bones can be held, and the claws of the feet are relatively curved, and the ground-dwelling birds are obviously different, that is to say, these long-feathered dinosaurs live on trees, and the discovery of these fossils provides strong support for the arboreal origin theory, which has aroused great concern in the academic community, so that the "bird flying arboreal origin theory" has gradually become the mainstream.
Scientists were really surprised by the discovery of The Erlian Giant Thornosaurus, such a huge dinosaur, but with a large number of bird-like features. This is very different from past studies, which have shown a clear correlation between the size of dinosaur size and the evolution of bird features. In other words, bird-like dinosaurs are relatively small. The smaller the body, the more bird features there are; conversely, when dinosaurs become larger, many bird-like features tend to disappear. An exception is Diplodocus, which has more bird-like characteristics than other small oviraptors. Scientists have found that the characteristic evolution patterns and underlying developmental mechanisms of different dinosaur taxa are different in the process of evolution to birds, which increases the complexity of bird origins.
Further research on the Three-Intrepid Dragon is continuing, what kind of surprises can the Three-Intrepid Dragon bring us, and how many secrets we do not know, let's wait and see.