• Location: Azania
• Mood: sleepy
• Music: Spooky's 'puter

Late Night Science Strikes Againe!

A couple of paleo'-related news items i wanted to pass along. First, a new confuiusornithid bird (avian theropod) from the Early Cretaceous Dabeigou Formation (131 Ma) in Fengning, Hebei Province, northern China. It has been named Eoconfuciusornis zhengi. This fossil is about 11 million years older than all previously known confuiusornithids, such as Confuciusornis sanctus, which are known from the famed Chinese Liaoning fossil deposits. In May 2001, I was fortunate enough to be at the American Museum in NYC, examining mosasaurs these, when an exquisite feathered specimen of the dromaeosaurid Sinornithosaurus millenii (a non-avian theropod, also from the Liaoning deposits) was briefly on display. In fact, there's even a rather fuzzy, low-rez photo of me with the specimen (I swear, my nose doesn't actually look like that):



Part and counterpart.


Also, paleontologists at Brigham Young University have discovered evidence of dermestid beetle larvae having fed on the carcass of a Late Jurassic-aged ornithopod dinosaur Camptosaurus. Cool stuff!