At Discovery News this week you can read about a new dinosaur from South Africa that lies at the heart of the sauropodomorph to sauropod transition. It helps to reveal how plant-eating dinosaurs became the world's largest known animals and evolved their unique body shape- tiny head, long neck, huge body, four legs and a long tail.
I'd like to share some related images with you here. Credit for all goes to Adam Yates, who led the project.
1. A reconstruction of the skeleton of the new dinosaur, Aardonyx celestae. Only the bones that have been found are shown.
2. Its skull. Once again, only the found bones are shown.
3. The right premaxilla, a bone from the tip of the snout. The two prongs partly enclose the giant nostril, characteristic of this species. The tips of two teeth can be seen protruding from the bottom edge.
4. This is the bony core from a claw that belonged to the inner toe (‘big toe’) of the hind foot. The red color is characteristic of bones from the site and is due to impregnation with iron minerals.
5.
Weathered
fragments of bone litter the surface of the Marc’s Quarry, South Africa, site before
excavation begins (2006). These indicate that there is a productive bone bed
underneath.
6. Adam Yates lies down next to newly exposed femur in Marc’s Quarry
7. Celeste Yates in Marc’s Quarry
8. Lucy Pereira and Marc Blackbeard map the position of exposed bones in Marc’s Quarry
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