New skeletons from the age of dinosaurs answer century-old questions
Friday, May 21, 2010 - 08:00
in Paleontology & Archaeology
More than 100 years ago palaeontologist E. D. Cope of 'Dinosaur Wars' fame found a few fragmentary bones of a reptile in the deserts of New Mexico. He named the reptile Typothorax. A century later Typothorax, which belongs to a group of reptiles called aetosaurs, remained something of a mystery, known mainly from pieces of armour, a few limb bones, and some sections of tail. Now, thanks to two remarkably complete skeletons discovered by volunteers and described in the latest issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology, palaeontologists are finally revealing what Typothorax really looked like, how large it was, how it walked, and myriad other questions...