Barbarian
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One problematic series of fossils was the Hadrosaurs, the duck-billed dinosaurs. There were two groups, those with large crests (which were apparently for sound generation, like the sacs used by some birds) and those with none at all.
So it was significant that a transitional was found, precisely where one would have to be to connect the two groups.
BOZEMAN – A previously undiscovered dinosaur species, first uncovered and documented by an adjunct professor at Montana State University, showcases an evolutionary transition from an earlier duckbilled species to that group’s descendants, according to a paper published today in the journal PLOS ONE.
The paper was written by that professor, Elizabeth Freedman Fowler, and her mentor, MSU paleontologist Jack Horner, Montana University System Regents Professor and curator of paleontology at MSU’s Museum of the Rockies. Their findings highlight how the new species of duckbilled dinosaur neatly fills a gap that had existed between an ancestral form with no crest and a descendant with a larger crest, providing key insight into the evolution of elaborate display structures in these gigantic extinct herbivores.
http://www.montana.edu/news/15858/msu-team-finds-new-dinosaur-species-reveals-evolutionary-link
So it was significant that a transitional was found, precisely where one would have to be to connect the two groups.
BOZEMAN – A previously undiscovered dinosaur species, first uncovered and documented by an adjunct professor at Montana State University, showcases an evolutionary transition from an earlier duckbilled species to that group’s descendants, according to a paper published today in the journal PLOS ONE.
The paper was written by that professor, Elizabeth Freedman Fowler, and her mentor, MSU paleontologist Jack Horner, Montana University System Regents Professor and curator of paleontology at MSU’s Museum of the Rockies. Their findings highlight how the new species of duckbilled dinosaur neatly fills a gap that had existed between an ancestral form with no crest and a descendant with a larger crest, providing key insight into the evolution of elaborate display structures in these gigantic extinct herbivores.
http://www.montana.edu/news/15858/msu-team-finds-new-dinosaur-species-reveals-evolutionary-link