Utah rocks reveal a new dinosaur species by Zuzana Zelenakova

A new kind of dinosaur which paleontologists called Abydosaurus has been discovered in Dinosaur National Monument in eastern Utah. Abydosaurus belongs to the group of sauropods, which are dinosaurs notable for the enormous size of some species. Some of the largest animals that have ever lived on Earth are sauropods. The skulls of Abydosaurus were buried within so called Dinosaur wall, a rock layer that contains hundreds of dinosaur fossils. "Their heads are built lighter than mammal skulls because they sit way out at the end of very long necks," said Brooks Britt, a paleontologist at Brigham Young University. "Instead of thick bones fused together, sauropod skulls are mad! e of thin bones bound together by soft tissue. Usually it falls apart quickly after death and disintegrates." The dinosaur was named by the lead author of the discovery paper that will appear in the journal Naturwissenshaften Daniel Chure, a paleontologist at Dinosaur National Monument, and his colleagues. The name is a reference to the city of Abydos on the river Nile, where according to the Egyptian mythology the head and neck of Osiris, god of the afterlife and underworld, were buried. Sauros means lizard in Greek. The specific name mcintoshi was given to the new species in memory of the American paleontologist Jack McIntosh, who specialized in sauropod dinosaurs. Sauropods are mostly known from the neck down and the Utah discovery sheds more light on eating habits of these giants. "They didn't chew their food; they just grabbed it and swallowed it," Britt said. "The skulls are only one two-hundredth of total body volume and don't have an elaborate chewing system." All s! auropods were plant-eaters and their teeth developed at the en! d of the dinosaur age a pencil-like shape. The skulls that belonged to Abydosaurus juveniles are currently on display at Museum of Paleontology at Brigham Young University.

related story (sgx16585): http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100224/ap_on_re_us/us_dinosaur_...

by Zuzana Zelenakova for SigEx Ventures (http://sigexventures.com)

SigEx Ventures's matrix of properties are quickly becoming leaders in digital telebroadcasting, free content delivery allowing people to easily talk, view, upload and share through free online TV bro! adcasting, free unlimited global calls, video blogs and SMS. SigEx Ventures invests in projects deploying "free" to add-on royalty revenue models