I'm officially an old man: I look forward to complaining about the litter at the bus stop in front of our house. When I turn the corner from Olive onto 23rd, I have a look and sternly say out loud, "What savages!" when I'm by myself. I no longer say it when my wife is with me in the car, because I'm sure she's tired of hearing it.

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For the third year in a row, the Burke Museum is bringing a world-renowned expert on dinosaur paleontology to Seattle for a free public lecture. This year’s lecture features Dr. Luis Chiappe, who will discuss new research that shows that birds are the living descendants of theropod dinosaurs, and how fossils discovered over the past 20 years have shed light on the origin of avian flight.

Dr. Luis M. Chiappe, Ph.D. is the Director of the Dinosaur Institute and Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

This lecture is FREE and open to the public. Advance registration is required —space is limited.

More information and registration information here.

And coming March 3rd at the Burke: their annual kid-friendly Dino Day!!!

And finally: What's a dinosaur bite feel like? Scientists in Sydney study modern alligators to get an idea.

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The first nest of babies was found in Mongolia:

The approximately 75-million-year-old nest shows 15 juvenile members of Protoceratops andrewsi—a relative of Triceratops—entombed in ancient sand dune deposits. The nest was recently discovered by Mongolian paleontologist Pagmin Narmandakh in the region's Djadokhta formation.

The other nest is in South Africa, and provides insight into juvenile development and parental care in Massospondylus:

…the site seemed to be a popular one for dino day care, as the nests were found in at least three distinct layers of rock within the excavation, each indicating a different point in time. In fact, the researchers suggest the dinosaur moms likely returned repeatedly to the site. Also, the fact that multiple nests were found within the same layers — and thus were laid at about the same time — reveals the dinosaurs likely gathered in groups to lay their eggs, the oldest evidence of such behavior in the fossil record.

Dino daycare!!!! Adorable. (More info here.)

Have a hot dinosaur news tip? Send it to dinosaurs@thestranger.com

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The lethal hooked claws on Velociraptor weren't use to slash at the dinosaurs' victims - as in Stephen Spielberg's Jurassic Park.

Instead, the sickle claws would have been used to hook into prey, and 'latch on' like modern hawks and eagles - and then Velociraptor would have eaten its prey alive.

So you know... try to show a little respect

Have a hot dinosaur news tip? Send it to dinosaurs@thestranger.com

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Next, you need to know about osteoderms:

A Macalester professor and her colleagues have found that Madagascar dinosaurs carried giant, hollow bones in their skin that may have helped them survive the harsh environments they inhabited. This discovery has shed new light on the anatomy and function of these bones in the biggest animals to ever walk on land.

More about osteoderms here, here and here!

Lastly, rock-star paleontologist Jack Horner has married an undergraduate at Montana State University.

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• Chickensaurus v. Ancient Kraken!

In related news, my favorite scientifically-sound paleontological story of 2011 is undoubtedly Jack Horner's chickensaurus project. You can trust I will continue to post any progress, and will let you know the second we are each able to have our own pet dinosaur. Squeeeee!!!

And just because we all love polls:

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• This is one of my very own dinosaur ornaments.

Please enjoy these dinosaur Christmas ornaments in the meantime, and I promise I will be back on the beat in January!

Canadian cavalcade of creatures!!!

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A heavy equipment operator unearthed what appears to be a nearly complete plesiosaur while digging in Canada’s oil sands, Syncrude announced Thursday...

“This is a very rare find,” said the [Royal Tyrrell Museum]’s Don Brinkman. “It’s a long necked plesiosaur, which is a marine reptile with a very long neck, small head and short body.

“The last one that was recovered was 10 years ago; it was recognized as a new kind and given the name Wapuskanectes.” When she discovered the bones, operator Maggy Horvath said she immediately stopped digging and told a Syncrude geologist who works with the Royal Tyrrell on fossil discoveries.

More on the discovery here and here!

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Federal paleontologists announced this week the discovery of Nevada’s first formally documented set of dinosaur tracks, which were recently found by some volunteers in the conservation area’s fire-colored Aztec sandstone.

More here!

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• Old-timey illustration of Protoceratops.

A nest containing the fossilized remains of 15 juvenile Protoceratops andrewsi dinosaurs from Mongolia has been described by a University of Rhode Island paleontologist, revealing new information about postnatal development and parental care. It is the first nest of this genus ever found and the first indication that Protoceratops juveniles remained in the nest for an extended period.

...Fastovsky calls Protoceratops "a fascinating and unexpected mass of contradictions." It is an herbivore that lived in a sand sea much like the Sahara Desert and likely bestowed significant parental care on a relatively large number of offspring, perhaps because it lived where mortality was quite high.

A wide variety of theropod dinosaurs lived in Mongolia at the time, some of which, including the notorious Velociraptor, probably ate young Protoceratops.

More information and a photo of the nest here!

Have a hot dinosaur news tip? Send it to dinosaurs@thestranger.com

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• "Have some Meleagris gallopavo! The drumstick is delicious!"

You know who else ate avian dinosaurs? NON-avian dinosaurs!!

In life, Microraptor gui must have been an elegant dinosaur. This small, sickle-clawed dromaeosaurid was covered in plumage, including long feathers along its arms and legs. We know this thanks to the exquisite preservation of multiple Microraptor specimens found in the roughly 120-million-year-old strata of northeastern China. But feathers aren’t the only delicate dinosaur features that remained intact during the process of death, burial and fossilization. In at least one Microraptor specimen, paleontologists have found scraps of the dinosaur’s last meal.

... There, hidden beneath the ribs, are parts of the wing and feet of a Cretaceous bird.

[from Dinosaur Tracking, Smithsonian magazine's blog]

So Microraptor had four "wings" and ate birds. Sweet! Check out the this link for an excellent illustration of Microraptor catching its prey and an image of the fossil. More info here, here and here!

h/t Brian and Parris! Have a hot dinosaur news tip? Send it to dinosaurs@thestranger.com

A new Australian documentary follows a team of scientists researching a site near Lark Quarry in Queensland where thousands of bipedal dino footprints all appear to be rushing away from a larger predator. The trailer for the documentary (which is only showing in Australia for now) is SO MUCH FUN:

However, Brian Switek questions the premise over at the Smithsonian's blog, Dinosaur Tracking:

There is no doubt that a huge gaggle of little dinosaurs scurried away over the damp Cretaceous lake shore. What has come into question is the identity of the dinosaur that triggered the stampede. The dramatic predator vs. prey story was based on large, three-toed footprints found at the same site. These were previously attributed to a large theropod dinosaur akin to Allosaurus—the recently-discovered Australovenator seemed to be a good candidate—but a recent reanalysis by paleontologists Anthony Romilio and Steven Salisbury found that the imprints don’t actually match the foot anatomy of big predatory dinosaurs. Instead, the relatively blunt-toed tracks correspond to the feet of a herbivorous, iguanodontian dinosaur, something akin to Australia’s own Muttaburrasaurus.

Go read the whole thing!

Have a hot dinosaur news tip? Send it to dinosaurs@thestranger.com

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• "I say, I am NOT the 99%"

Thanks, Slog-tipper Vic! Have a hot dinosaur news tip? Send it to dinosaurs@thestranger.com

It's video day at Dinosaur News!

First, from the BBC: "Scientists are in the process of excavating a desert fossil bed in Chile containing dozens of whole skeletons of ancient whales dating back seven million years." (Click for video of the full story. Thanks, Slog-tipper Brad!)

And from Peter Peake and the folks at Aardman Animations:
(Thanks, Slog-tipper Mike!!)

Have a hot dinosaur news tip? Send it to dinosaurs@thestranger.com

Have a hot dinosaur news tip? Send it to dinosaurs@thestranger.com

Those in the "birds are dinosaurs" camp will not be surprised at new evidence of migratory sauropods. A study of Camarasaurus teeth strongly suggests that the animals moved around seasonally:

Palaeontologists have long suspected that some dinosaurs migrated, but this is the first solid evidence of it, says Paul Barrett of the Natural History Museum in London. Camarasaurus must have put a lot of pressure on food resources, so it makes sense that they moved around. Barrett suspects rarer sauropods such as Haplocanthosaurus didn't need to migrate.

And if the herbivores are migrating, the carnivores probably are as well:

When modern herbivores migrate, they are followed by predators, so the same may have happened in the Jurassic. The most common local predator was Allosaurus, a distant cousin of T. Rex. Fricke is trying to find out if they tracked Camarasaurus. It would make sense if they did: "A mass migration," says Barrett, "is basically a huge walking supermarket."

More on this story here, here and here.

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It's really not a good interview, but it's the first one that came up on YouTube, and the books talked about are the good ones, and the lines the interviewer quotes are good ones (with close-ups of the paragraphs! SWOON!), and after 11:50 minutes of stilted, hilarious example upon stilted, hilarious example of why great writers should never do television—seriously, just read the essays—the interviewer LITERALLY says: "Joan Didion is going to be with us for three hours today."

If you listen closely—even though she's not onscreen—you can hear Joan Didion's heart stop.

First, you may remember me talking about the Dinosaur Mailing List... I thought you might enjoy their discussion of Terra Nova. Spoiler: these same folks who are stoked about JP4 are less excited about TN. (following the discussion is slightly convoluted, to read the next reply you'll want to click "Next by thread")

Second, Slog-tipper Tracy sent this article about a sweet art show in Anchorage, AK: Dinosaurs & Robots! Thanks, Tracy!!

Have a hot dinosaur news tip? Send it to dinosaurs@thestranger.com

FIRST: Dinosaur feathers found in amber! (YES, Cienna mentioned last month in The Morning News, but I'm repeating because I didn't get a chance to post about it at the time and OMG-dino-feathers!)

[P]aleontologists have found 70-million-year-old amber preserving 11 specimens showing a wide diversity of feather types at that time.

One specimen of so-called proto-feathers had a single bristlelike filament and some simple clusters. Others were complex structures with hooklike barbules that act like Velcro; in modern birds, this keeps feathers in place during dives. Still other specimens revealed feather patterns for flight and underwater diving.

Preserved pigment cells encased in the amber, along with other evidence, suggested that the feathered animals had an array of mottled patterns and diffuse colors like modern birds...

More articles on the dino-feathers here, here, here and here.

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Here's a round-up of some recent Dinosaur News stories you may have missed!
Have a hot dinosaur news tip? Send it to dinosaurs@thestranger.com

Archaeopteryx, widely regarded as being the world's oldest known bird, has just been knocked off its scientific perch, since new research concludes this feathered animal was, in fact, a dinosaur...

..."Epidexipteryx and Epidentrosaurus, two species we described years ago, are probably the most primitive and oldest known birds," lead author Xing Xu told Discovery News, adding that they lived about 160 million years ago at what is now Dahugou Locality in eastern Inner Mongolia.

More here and here and here.

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