Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Some dinosaur species may be the same species

Dinosaurs are captivating animals particularly among children but now it turns out that as many as 1/3 of dinosaur species may not have existed as separate species but were actually juveniles and adults of the same species.

Paleontologists at UC Berkeley discovered that three species of dome-headed dinosaur, (Dracorex, Stygimoloch, and Pachycephalosaurus wyomingensis) are actually the same species at different ages and maturity.

This has profound implication for the study of dinosaurs because it has the potential of changing the entire dinosaur fossil landscape. It also raises the question of what else have they missed. The fact is that this discovery could have implications that go way beyond dinosaurs after all the same mistake could have been made with other types of fossils. As a result this discovery could send waves through out the fossil record.

This shows that have misinterpreted some types fossils mistaking youngsters for adults of different spices suggesting that other misinterpretations particularly among so-called transitional forms could have been made particularly between fish and amphibians where the so-called transition is similar to the life cycle.

In any case this is  a good example of how easily fossils can be misinterpreted,

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