Argentine dinosaur paved way for Tyrannosaurus rex

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.khaleejtimes.ae/displayarticle.asp?xfile=data/environment/2011/January/environment_January19.xml§ion=environment&col=

(Reuters)

15 January 2011

BUENOS AIRES - A small predator that hunted in South America 230 million years ago represents one of the earliest-known dinosaurs and foreshadowed later meat-eating beasts like Tyrannosaurus rex, according to scientists from Argentina and the United States.

In findings published on Friday in the journal Science, they described the discovery of a dinosaur called Eodromaeus, meaning “dawn runner.”

It was a modest creature — measuring about 4 feet (1.2 meters) long and weighing only 10 to 15 pounds (4.5 to 6.8 kg) — that walked on two legs and possessed a long neck and tail, sharp claws and sabre-shaped teeth.

But the scientists said it paved the way for some true monsters like T. rex. Tyrannosaurus, which lived at the very end of the age of dinosaurs 65 million years ago, approached 50 feet (15 meters) in length and weighed about 6 tonnes.

[Odin2005]

1. That science journalist is an idiot.

This thing would be an ancestor of ALL therapods.

[Nihil]

2. Maybe he's just writing simple things for the public at large?

i.e., for people who might recognise "tyrannosaur" but not "therapod"?

(I discovered I had to remember to recalibrate my dinosaur talk many years
ago when our baby-sitter had to ask me what my young son had been explaining
to him about dinosaurs, what was a "palaeontologist" and why would a six-year-old
want to be one when he grew up?)

:shrug:

He could still be an idiot but he could also be trapped in the morass
of having to cope with "general ignorance".