Sept.27, 2001- In a nesting area once used by hundreds of generation of dinosaurs, researchers have found a clutch of unhatched babies that come from the last and most massive family of long-necked,plant-eating sauropods. Luis Chiappe, first author of a study appearing Friday in the journal Science, said the baby dinosaurs drowned in there eggs just before hatching when a river flooded some 80 million years ago in what is now the Patagonia region of Argentina. Chiappe, chair of the department of vertebrate paleontology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, said the dinosaur nesting area was discovered in 1997, but researchers only now have identified the types of animals that used it as a nursery. He said the embryos are from a sauropod type of dinosaur in a family group known as titanosaurs. A member of this family group, argentinosaurs, lived 90 million years ago and is thought to be the largest animal ever to walk the Earth-some 36.6 metres long and weighing more than 81 tonnes. Chiappe said the drowned embryos found in the eggs are from a previously unknown species that is a later and smaller member of the same titanosaur family. "We have found hundreds of nests� in an area known as Auca Mahuida, said Chiapllpe. �Sauropods gathered in great numbers-by the hundreds of thousands-to nest at this site. They returned to this site time after time.� Sauropods had small heads atop long necks. The massive body ended with a muscular tail. Chiappe said the dinosaurs apparently dug holes, laid their eggs in irregular clusters, often two or three layers on top of each other. They then mounded the nests with vegetation, he said, and abandoned the young to there fate. �They preferred to lay their eggs on the flood plain, but not close to river channels,"he said. The fossilized eggs prove the animals could misjudge the river. At least four times, he said, the nests wereflooded, drowning the young in their shells and burying them in mud. The mudpreserved and fossilized the eggs and the embryos. Chiappe said the eggs were about the size of softballs, and the six baby dinos analysed were about 30.5 centimetres long. Fossil fragments of adults from the same species, found nearby, suggest that when fully grown the babies would have been about 15.2 metres long. �They grew about 50 feet in 15 to 20 years, which means they grew very fast,�said Chiappe. The six baby dinos have the most complete skulls of any titanosaur yet discovered, a fact that Chiappe called ironic. �The best preserved skulls of this large group of long-necked dinosaurs come from embryonic remains, which are among the rarest of all dinosaur fossils,�he said. Lawrence Witmer, a dinosaur researcher at Ohio University, said the Chiappe discovery "is truly remarkable" and will contribute important new understanding about dinosaurs. "this is important," said Witmer. "It tells us about the growth and development of dinosaurs,...a key element of biology and one that is sorely missing from dinosaur studies." (Source: The Associated Press, Washington)

Sept.10, 2001- Mark Goodwin of the University of California Museum of Paleontology in Berkeley is criticizing the federal government for failing to demand that Japan return a rare, nearly complete 12 metre-long Allosaurus specimen ( one of only 10 or 12 well-preserved specimens that exist today). Emery County prosecutors charged a Pennsylvania couple with theft last week and federal prosecutors filed a civil suit against them seeking $2.1 million US in damages. They were accused of hiring someone to dig up the fosslil in 1991 on federal land about 320 kilometres south of Salt Lake City, and then selling it for $400,000 to an unidentified Japanese collector. Federal Officials are reluctant to pressure the collector, a key but volunteer witness in the case."We would end up with no dinosaur and no case if we don't play this out correctly," said a spokeswoman for U.S Attorney Paul Warner. (source from my local newspaper...)