Loch Ness monster ancestor? Scottish scientists identify prehistoric reptile Dearcmhara shawcrossi

 
Photo: An artist's impression of the newly identified species, which patrolled the waters off Scotland some 170 million years ago. (AFP, University of Edinburgh: Todd Marshall)

A giant prehistoric reptile that patrolled Scotland's waters 170 million years ago has been identified by scientists.

The creature, which resembled a menacing dolphin and grew up to four metres long, was identified by fossils from the Isle of Skye in northwest Scotland.

A team of palaeontologists, led by Edinburgh University scientists, studied fossil fragments of skulls, teeth, vertebrae and an upper arm bone unearthed on the island over the past 50 years.

They identified several examples of extinct aquatic animals – known as ichthyosaurs – which lived during the early to middle Jurassic period, including the entirely new species.

Scientists named the species Dearcmhara shawcrossi in honour of Brian Shawcross, an amateur fossil collector who gathered many of the fossils in 1959.

These were later donated to a museum, allowing scientists to study them and identify the new species.

"During the time of dinosaurs, the waters of Scotland were prowled by big reptiles the size of motor boats," said Steve Brusatte of Edinburgh University's School of GeoSciences.

"Their fossils are very rare and only now, for the first time, we've found a new species that was uniquely Scottish."

Scotland's most famous reptile, real or imaginary, is the Loch Ness monster, the myth of which draws thousands of visitors a year to Loch Ness in northern Scotland.

Scientists say traces of a 150-million-year-old dinosaur which have been found on the banks of Scotland's Loch Ness are definitely not those of the lake's legendary monster.

A Jurassic-era fossil of four perfectly preserved vertebrae from what is believed to have been a 35-foot long plesiosaur was found by a man who plucked it from shallow water on the bank of the loch.

Gerald McSorley, 67, turned it over to the National Museum of Scotland, which is conducting tests on the rare find, the first of its kind in Scotland for more than a century.

Museum spokeswoman Hannah Dolby said: "Chances that the fossil originated where it was found are very slim ... it was deposited there either by natural or artificial means.

"Borings on the fossil show it comes from a marine environment rather than a fresh water environment like the loch," she said.

Tales of a "horrible great beastie" have swirled around the 200-metre deep Scottish loch for centuries, often describing the creature as black with a fat body and serpentine neck.

Cameras beam 24-hour footage of the loch to webcams and diving teams regularly scour the chilly waters for the elusive creature.

Any hopes among Nessie enthusiasts that the fossil find might prove the existence of the monster would be groundless, scientists say.

While the fossil is about 150 million years old, Loch Ness was formed only 10,000 years ago, at the end of the last Ice Age.


AFP
 

CHIMERAE –Warhammer Fantasy Chaos

I walked across the plain of bone beneath the brazen sky. All about were the skulls of the slain, and among them grew black flowers, each twisted bloom a soul in thrall. Crimson-flecked flies sucked at the red nectar in that field and the air tasted bloody in my mouth. The black flowers nodded their heads as I passed and whispered in the bitter-scented breeze. A distant Daemons shriek reached my ears and the sound of tormented laughter drifted by and was swallowed by silence.

And then I came to the Tree of Damned Shades.

Living souls had hung upon its branches and living souls had fed its roots in ages past. Twisted with the pain of their misguided loyalty, the shades had made their pact and now had their reward. Those same shades moaned their regret and agony, pleading for pity from every branch and twig, save one whose deviant eye I met. I paused in the glare of that eye. The Tree of Damned Shades spoke in a splintering voice, crying out as if a thousand axes were tearing at its heartwood.

"By my broken faith and darkened promises, a mortal walks in the garden of blood. Once my roots taste of his mortal body, he is mine and I am he. A man... a man... I will be free in flesh and bone. I will slay you for my master. Blood beyond measure I will spill upon the battlefields of the world. Oh... freedom from this wooden frame that I could once again march to the beat of my heart!”

The tree withered and shook its dark branches and I fled, for my fate lay not with those trapped and hideous souls...'

-Liber Malefic, Marius Hollseher

The three-headed Chimera is one of the most fearsome of all children of Chaos, a beast whose progenitors were so warped that it is now impossible to say what manner of creatures they might once have been. Like all monsters that dwell in or near to the Realm of Chaos, the Chimerae take many bizarre shapes. However, Chimerae are more susceptible than most monsters to the twisting power of Chaos. The heads of some Chimerae breathe fire in the manner of Dragons, whilst other heads sprout razor-sharp fangs or jaws that drip with a poisonous slime. Most Chimerae possess a fiendish tail that ends in a snapping maw possessed of an intelligence and hunger of its own. There are even some Chimerae, like those that dwell among the spires of the Bloodshriek Citadel that are said to have bathed in the coruscating Winds of Magic at the summit of the world. The skin of these Bloodshriek Chimerae is an ever-shifting pattern of bright colours and hues, turning translucent one moment before running like molten wax to cover and heal the rips and gashes in its tainted flesh the next. Regardless of their exact form, all Chimerae share a savage and unpredictable nature, and wherever their tri-throated roars are heard, death and carnage are surely not far behind.

A particularly powerful Chaos Lord, or an insanely brave Sorcerer, may sometimes try to bind a Chimera to his service, for the sheer carnage they can wreak upon the battlefield is a spectacle bound to attract the attention of the Dark Gods. It is said that only those truly favoured by Chaos will have any hope of binding such a creature to their will, and a champion may spend a lifetime searching for a Chimera, and never succeed, or else find his prize and be torn apart by it moments later. However, those few who succeed in their quest have at their disposal a monstrous creature of unbridled destructive potential.

Scientists seek to solve mystery of Stegosaurus plates

Although nowhere near the largest of the Jurassic dinosaurs, Stegosaurus were still about the size of a bus. Distinctive and heavily built, they were herbivores with short forelimbs and would have walked with their small head close to the ground and the four-spiked tail held high. The double row of plates running along the back helped control body temperature and were probably used in display or possibly in defence against carnivorous Allosaurs. Most fossils for the three known species, including some complete skeletons, have come from the USA, although a recent discovery in Portugal suggests a wider distribution.

By Pallab Ghosh Science correspondent, BBC News

Researchers hope to learn how much it weighed, how it moved and what it used its iconic back plates for.

A UK team has scanned each of its 360 bones into a computer and has digitally reconstructed the dinosaur.

The specimen, nicknamed "Sophie", has been acquired by the Natural History Museum in London.

 

Although Stegosauruses are one of the most well known dinosaurs, they are among those that scientists know the least about. There are only six partial skeletons of the creature, which lived around 150 million years ago.

It could grow to the size of a minibus and the gigantic plates which ran along its back were its most distinctive feature.

Stegosaurus: the outstanding questions

    How did it use its back plates and tail spikes?

    How effective were its muscles?

    How did such a small skull manage to chew enough food for such a large body?

    How much did it weigh?

Surprisingly, it was 100 years ago that the dinosaur's skeleton was properly assessed and scientifically described. Now, using medical imaging techniques and 3D modelling, researchers at the Natural History Museum hope to learn much more about this iconic creature.

Prof Paul Barrett, who is leading the research, said that they were particularly interested in finding out what stegosauruses used their plates for.

"We want to find out whether they were used for defence or whether they were used as a radiator to help the animal pick up or lose heat," he told BBC News.

Mysteries

Sophie is 80% complete and is thought to be the most complete specimen in the world. Dr Charlotte Brassey, who is working with Prof Barrett, helped to scan in its 360 bones and digitally recreate it on her computer as a detailed 3D model.

"I reconstructed the skeleton to see what it might have looked like and then began to reconstruct the muscles and how they connected with the skeleton. From that we can begin to say how effective its muscles were and eventually in the future we would like to reconstruct how it moved," she told BBC News.

Among the mysteries the researchers would like to solve is how the species was able to walk with such small front legs and such large back legs.

World of Warcraft New Mount: Enchanted Fey Dragon

World of Warcraft® In-Game Mount

Entrusted with protecting the Emerald Dream, the Enchanted Fey Dragon absorbs magic and exudes style—with a chroma-shifting twist. Saddle up on one of these iridescent sprites and enjoy the instant street (and sky) cred that comes with being one of the last bastions of cool.

The Enchanted Fey Dragon automatically scales to the fastest riding skill known by each character. If they aren’t high enough level to use a flying mount, it will still be useable as a ground mount.

Spinosaurus revealed as a fearsome aquatic dinosaur

Scientists now believe that Spinosaurus lived mostly in the water making it a rarity among normally terrestrial dinosaurs.

Rachel Sullivan
ABC

The giant, sail-backed Spinosaurus was a formidable aquatic predator built for swimming and hunting in water, according to new fossil evidence.

The 15-metre long carnivorous dinosaur Spinosaurus aegyptiacus lived 95 million years ago and is the only known example of a semi-aquatic dinosaur.

"There were lots of aquatic reptiles, such as ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs, but until this discovery it was thought that dinosaurs hunted only on land," explains paleontologist and study lead author Dr Nizar Ibrahim from the University of Chicago.

"The discovery shows that dinosaurs were much more diverse and adaptable than previously thought."

The paper is published in Science today.

Spinosaurus was first discovered a century ago by German paleontologist Ernst Freiherr Stromer von Reichenbach in Egypt. However, the partial skeleton he found were destroyed during Allied bombing of Munich in 1944.

Recently, archeologists have discovered new Spinosaurus fossils along desert cliffs in Morocco.

The area was once home to an extensive river system, where coelacanths the size of cars lived alongside seven metre long sawfish, and three metre long lungfish. Freshwater sharks and crocodile-like predators, some as long as a bus, also lived in the river system.

"To hunt successfully in territory occupied by animals this size, Spinosaurus would need to have been big to have survived," Ibrahim says.

Fish-eater

Ibrahim and colleagues CT scanned the new fossil finds and digitally pieced the skeleton together. They filled in the blanks using information from museum collections and Stromer's notes, sketches and photos.

They found that Spinosaurus had a range of adaptations for its aquatic lifestyle, including a long slender jaw and cone shaped teeth that were ideal for capturing slippery prey.

"Its nasal opening was also much further back allowing it to breathe when the skull is submerged. Pressure receptors on the tip of its snout were similar to those used by crocodiles today to detect prey movements," Ibrahim says.

"It has fish-eater written all over its skull."

The rest of its body had strange proportions too, he adds. "Its pelvis was small and it had short, muscular hind legs - adaptations that would have made it easier to paddle in the water and which are only seen in animals that returned to the sea, such as the ancestors of whales."

Spinosaurus also had broad feet and long flat claws to help it paddle through soft mud and a very flexible tail that it would have used in a side-to-side motion like a crocodile.

The final evidence for its aquatic lifestyle came from inside the bones, which lacked the hollow marrow cavity typically found in predatory dinosaurs.

"Instead the bone was very dense, something that we see in penguins and manatees and is thought to help with buoyancy control."

The function of the animal's sail, which would have likely protruded prominently from the water, is still under debate, but Ibrahim thinks it may have served as a warning to other predators not to enter a spinosaur's territory.

Life-size replica printed

Once the digital model was complete, the researchers 3D-printed a life-size replica of the skeleton.

"We knew from looking at it on the monitor that this animal was really big," Ibrahim says, "but it isn't until you are standing face to face with it that you get a true sense of its size."

The model will become the centerpiece of an international traveling exhibition, while the original bones will be returned to Morocco.

Finding other semi-aquatic predatory dinosaurs in the future isn't out of the question, says Ibrahim, but cautions would-be dinosaur hunters that they are rare.

"Most predatory dinosaurs looked a lot like T. rex. We see the same blueprint used over and over again. Spinosaurus was a major departure from that."

AMPHIPTHERE [AMPHIPTERE]

This terrifying creature is a giant snake with horns on its head and wings on its back. It is native to the British Isles, but it has also been seen in Gaul, where it is known as a Guivre. It is an extremely aggressive and vicious predator. It especially hates human beings and attacks them on sight. The creature makes its home in the forest and occasionally in marshlands. Intruders are dealt with severely. 

In combat, the Amphipthere strikes with its horns, goring its targets. It can also bite, which is its preferred tactic against wounded prey, making it easier to eat them. Its most fearsome attack, though, is its ability to constrict its prey by wrapping the target up in its coils and squeezing the life out of it. 

These creatures are so terrifying that, during the Middle Ages, some warlords would feature them in their coats of arms to inflict fear in their enemies and the populace. A person who displayed the Amphipthere was known to be vicious and without mercy just like the beast itself.

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