{"id":10673,"date":"2016-10-25T15:52:31","date_gmt":"2012-10-25T15:52:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.viamedic.com\/blog\/?p=643"},"modified":"2012-10-25T15:52:31","modified_gmt":"2012-10-25T15:52:31","slug":"dracula-dinosaur-found","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edrugstore.com\/blog\/current-health-news\/dracula-dinosaur-found\/","title":{"rendered":"Dracula Dinosaur Found"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new species of dinosaur with dracula-like teeth was discovered in the archives of the Harvard research center by Paul Sereno. —\u00a0Click to Tweet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Pegomastax is what this small animal has been named. The name means “thick jaw from Africa.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The remains of the dinosaur were discovered 50 years ago by a 1960\u2019s research team from Harvard, somewhere near the border of South Africa. After being taken back to Harvard. the fossil got buried in the collection — never being described fully.<\/p>\n

But recently, in preparation to be shipped to Cape Town\u2019s South African Museum, the fossil was uncovered by Paul Sereno. He recently published a paper on this fossil and other fossils from dinosaurs in the same family.<\/p>\n

Fossil Characteristics<\/strong>
\nThe fossil was only a few feet tall — about 2. It\u2019s skull was about 3 inches long. And it was mostly head and tail, weighing less than a housecat.<\/p>\n

It also had a parrot-like beak<\/a> that was strangely combined with two sets of teeth, one of sharp canines and one of tall teeth meant to cut up plants. Although the canines are more puzzling, it\u2019s likely they were meant to scare off predators and for competitive sparring — which would have also served a purpose in attracting mates.<\/p>\n

Sereno believes that this dinosaur may also have been covered in quills, much like a porcupine. It\u2019s less certain whether the quills served the same function, though, as they weren\u2019t as tough and spiky as a porcupine\u2019s, and they wouldn\u2019t have conserved heat very well. It\u2019s likely that they were differently colored to differentiate species, or that they made the animal appear larger, scaring off predators.<\/p>\n

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Pangea was a massive supercontinent that existed hundreds of millions of years ago, before tectonic plate activity pulled the continent apart. (Photo by TravelingMan on Flickr.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Significance for Evolutionary Science<\/strong>
\nThis fossil has been dubbed Pegomastax, and it\u2019s part of a group of dinosaurs called heterodontosaurus, which simply means \u201cdifferent teeth.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hoped that Pegmastax might give some evolutionary clues for the entire line because it is relatively near the base of its family tree, and it\u2019s also from 200 million years ago, which is about the time that Pangea was breaking up.<\/p>\n

This splitting of the massive supercontinent separated different species of heterodontosaur, which helps explain why we see such large variation with this family. For example, Pegomastax has a distinctly higher crown than others in its family, and one other species has triangular teeth.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong>
\nIt will be interesting to see what other scientists make of this relatively rare find, and where it leads evolutionary theory concerning the heterodontosaur.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new species of dinosaur with dracula-like teeth was discovered in the archives of the Harvard research center by Paul Sereno. —\u00a0Click to Tweet. The remains of the dinosaur were discovered 50 years ago by a 1960\u2019s research team from Harvard, somewhere near the border of South Africa. After being taken back to Harvard. the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_autoblog_aioseo_focus_keyphrase":"","_autoblog_aioseo_title":"","_autoblog_aioseo_description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-health-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t