[_ Old Earth _] Another Transitional Fossil discovered.

[Barbarian]

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

 

[AirDancer]

That's great news! I rather thought Jack and his team would have found the transitional form quite a few years ago. Well, at least I had hoped they would.

 

[Barbarian]

All we need now is for Answers in Genesis to announce that "evolutionists" were dismayed to find two new gaps in the hadrosaur fossil record.

 

[AirDancer]

I'm sorry, Barbarian. Your comment about the two new gaps caught me as funny.

Well, as a life-long student of paleontology, I'm not at all disappointed that there may be 2 new gaps. After all, one more chapter in the duck-billed dinosaur history just may have been completed with this latest discovery.

 

[Barbarian]

I'm sorry, Barbarian. Your comment about the two new gaps caught me as funny.

An arcane reference, but I figured you'd get it.

 

[AirDancer]

The comment reminded me of the first physical anthropology class I took. There was one classmate who made comments like that. The interesting thing about him was that he didn't believe dinosaurs ever walked the earth. In his opinion, there wasn't even the option of dinosaurs on the earth during the time of early mankind. Dinosaurs just simply didn't exist, to his thinking. He believed the fossils were merely strange stone formations, created during the various ice ages.