Welsh Dragons ACTUALLY existed
(Thanks to JoMama for the link!)
Once upon a time, long ago, dragons really did exist in Wales.
Scientists have discovered the fossilised skull and bones of one of the beasts on a Severn Estuary beach near the town of Penarth.
The juvenile creature, named Dracoraptor hanigani, dates back 201 million years and is one of the oldest known Jurassic dinosaurs.
This is what the “Welsh dragon” Dracoraptor hanigani might have looked like (Bob Nicholls/PA)
Dracoraptor is Latin for “dragon robber”. A red dragon is the national symbol of Wales and appears on the country’s flag.
Although a meat-eater and distantly related to Tyrannosaurus rex, the newly discovered dragon was nothing like as terrifying as its later cousin.
D. hanigani, which stood on two legs, was a small, agile animal probably no more than about 70cm (2.2 ft) tall and 200cm (6.5 ft) long with a long tail that may have been used for balance.
Since most of its bones were not yet fully formed, experts believe the Penarth specimen may have been a youngster.
Scientists have recovered about 40% of the dinosaur’s skeleton, found embedded in rock at the base of a collapsed coastal cliff at Lavernock Pointat in March 2014.
At the start of the Jurassic Period, when D. hanigani was alive, the climate of south Wales was much warmer than it is today and dinosaurs were just starting to diversify.
Dinosaurs were diversifying when the Welsh dragon was alive (Yui Mok/PA)
The Welsh “dragon”, which belonged to the large theropod dinosaur family, is thought to be one of the oldest known Jurassic dinosaurs in the UK or even the world.
The bones were found by a pair of brothers and amateur fossil-hunters, Nick and Rob Hanigan, who had been searching for ichthyosaur remains. Their surname was adopted for the dinosaur’s species classification.
The research appears in the online journal Public Library of Science ONE.
________________________________________________________________________
YAY! I now get to say it...."There be dragons!"
(Thanks to JoMama for the link!)
Once upon a time, long ago, dragons really did exist in Wales.
Scientists have discovered the fossilised skull and bones of one of the beasts on a Severn Estuary beach near the town of Penarth.
The juvenile creature, named Dracoraptor hanigani, dates back 201 million years and is one of the oldest known Jurassic dinosaurs.
This is what the “Welsh dragon” Dracoraptor hanigani might have looked like (Bob Nicholls/PA)
Dracoraptor is Latin for “dragon robber”. A red dragon is the national symbol of Wales and appears on the country’s flag.
Although a meat-eater and distantly related to Tyrannosaurus rex, the newly discovered dragon was nothing like as terrifying as its later cousin.
D. hanigani, which stood on two legs, was a small, agile animal probably no more than about 70cm (2.2 ft) tall and 200cm (6.5 ft) long with a long tail that may have been used for balance.
Since most of its bones were not yet fully formed, experts believe the Penarth specimen may have been a youngster.
Scientists have recovered about 40% of the dinosaur’s skeleton, found embedded in rock at the base of a collapsed coastal cliff at Lavernock Pointat in March 2014.
At the start of the Jurassic Period, when D. hanigani was alive, the climate of south Wales was much warmer than it is today and dinosaurs were just starting to diversify.
Dinosaurs were diversifying when the Welsh dragon was alive (Yui Mok/PA)
The Welsh “dragon”, which belonged to the large theropod dinosaur family, is thought to be one of the oldest known Jurassic dinosaurs in the UK or even the world.
The bones were found by a pair of brothers and amateur fossil-hunters, Nick and Rob Hanigan, who had been searching for ichthyosaur remains. Their surname was adopted for the dinosaur’s species classification.
The research appears in the online journal Public Library of Science ONE.
________________________________________________________________________
YAY! I now get to say it...."There be dragons!"