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Dakotaraptor
''Dakotaraptor'' (meaning “thief from Dakota”) is a potentially chimaeric genus of large dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur that lived in North America during the Late Cretaceous period. The remains have been found in the Maastrichtian stage of the Hell Creek Formation, dated to the very end of the Mesozoic era, making ''Dakotaraptor'' one of the last surviving dromaeosaurids. The remains of ''D. steini'' were discovered in a multi-species bonebed. Elements of the holotype and referred specimens were later found to belong to trionychid turtles, and further analysis of potential non-dromaeosaurid affinities of the holotype and referred material have not yet been conducted. Phylogenetic analyses of ''D. steini'' place it in a variety of positions in the Dromaeosauridae. Discovery and naming In 2005, paleontologist Robert DePalma in Harding County, South Dakota discovered a fluvial bonebed bearing the remains of a variety of dinosaurian and non-dinosaurian remains, which yielde ...
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Dakotaraptor Skeleton Reconstruction
''Dakotaraptor'' (meaning “thief from Dakota”) is a potentially chimaeric genus of large dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur that lived in North America during the Late Cretaceous period. The remains have been found in the Maastrichtian stage of the Hell Creek Formation, dated to the very end of the Mesozoic era, making ''Dakotaraptor'' one of the last surviving dromaeosaurids. The remains of ''D. steini'' were discovered in a multi-species bonebed. Elements of the holotype and referred specimens were later found to belong to trionychid turtles, and further analysis of potential non-dromaeosaurid affinities of the holotype and referred material have not yet been conducted. Phylogenetic analyses of ''D. steini'' place it in a variety of positions in the Dromaeosauridae. Discovery and naming In 2005, paleontologist Robert DePalma in Harding County, South Dakota discovered a fluvial bonebed bearing the remains of a variety of dinosaurian and non-dinosaurian remains, which yielde ...
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Dromaeosauridae
Dromaeosauridae () is a family of feathered theropod dinosaurs. They were generally small to medium-sized feathered carnivores that flourished in the Cretaceous Period. The name Dromaeosauridae means 'running lizards', from Greek ('), meaning 'runner', and ('), meaning 'lizard'. In informal usage, they are often called raptors (after ''Velociraptor''), a term popularized by the film ''Jurassic Park''; a few types include the term "raptor" directly in their name and have come to emphasize their bird-like appearance and speculated bird-like behavior. Dromaeosaurid fossils have been found across the globe in North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, South America and Antarctica, with some fossils giving credence to the possibility that they inhabited Australia as well. They first appeared in the mid-Jurassic Period (late Bathonian stage, about 167 million years ago) and survived until the end of the Cretaceous (Maastrichtian stage, 66 ma), existing until the Cretaceous–Paleogene ex ...
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Hell Creek Formation
The Hell Creek Formation is an intensively studied division of mostly Upper Cretaceous and some lower Paleocene rocks in North America, named for exposures studied along Hell Creek, near Jordan, Montana. The formation stretches over portions of Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming. In Montana, the Hell Creek Formation overlies the Fox Hills Formation. The site of Pompeys Pillar National Monument is a small isolated section of the Hell Creek Formation. In 1966, the Hell Creek Fossil Area was designated as a National Natural Landmark by the National Park Service. It is a series of fresh and brackish-water clays, mudstones, and sandstones deposited during the Maastrichtian and Danian (respectively, the end of the Cretaceous period and the beginning of the Paleogene) by fluvial activity in fluctuating river channels and deltas and very occasional peaty swamp deposits along the low-lying eastern continental margin fronting the late Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway. Th ...
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Larry Martin
Larry Dean Martin (December 8, 1943 – March 9, 2013) was an American vertebrate paleontologist and curator of the Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center at the University of Kansas. Among Martin's work is research on the Triassic reptile '' Longisquama'' and theropod dinosaur (or fossil bird) ''Caudipteryx'' and ''Dakotaraptor''. According to the University of Kansas, he "has been a leading opponent of the theory that birds are 'living dinosaurs.'" Later he acknowledged a correlation and further contributed. He has also appeared in a few television documentaries about dinosaurs, including ''Jurassic Fight Club ''Jurassic Fight Club'' (titled ''Dinosaur Secrets'' in Australia/the UK) is a paleontology-based television series on History channel which premiered in the US in July 2008. ''Jurassic Fight Club'' was hosted by George Blasing, a self-taught pa ...''. He died of cancer at the age of 69 on March 9, 2013, after a long battle with the disease. Refer ...
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Specific Name (zoology)
In zoological nomenclature, the specific name (also specific epithet or species epithet) is the second part (the second name) within the scientific name of a species (a binomen). The first part of the name of a species is the name of the genus or the generic name. The rules and regulations governing the giving of a new species name are explained in the article species description. For example, the scientific name for humans is ''Homo sapiens'', which is the species name, consisting of two names: ''Homo'' is the " generic name" (the name of the genus) and ''sapiens'' is the "specific name". Historically, ''specific name'' referred to the combination of what are now called the generic and specific names. Carl Linnaeus, who formalized binomial nomenclature, made explicit distinctions between specific, generic, and trivial names. The generic name was that of the genus, the first in the binomial, the trivial name was the second name in the binomial, and the specific the proper term fo ...
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Robert Bakker
Robert Thomas Bakker (born March 24, 1945) is an American paleontologist who helped reshape modern theories about dinosaurs, particularly by adding support to the theory that some dinosaurs were endothermic (warm-blooded). Along with his mentor John Ostrom, Bakker was responsible for initiating the ongoing " dinosaur renaissance" in paleontological studies, beginning with Bakker's article "Dinosaur Renaissance" in the April 1975 issue of ''Scientific American''. His specialty is the ecological context and behavior of dinosaurs. Bakker has been a major proponent of the theory that dinosaurs were warm-blooded, smart, fast, and adaptable. He published his first paper on dinosaur endothermy in 1968. His seminal work, ''The Dinosaur Heresies,'' was published in 1986. He revealed the first evidence of parental care at nesting sites for ''Allosaurus''. He also observed evidence in support of Eldredge and Gould's theory of punctuated equilibrium in dinosaur populations. Bakker curren ...
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Genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial species name for each species within the genus. :E.g. '' Panthera leo'' (lion) and '' Panthera onca'' (jaguar) are two species within the genus '' Panthera''. ''Panthera'' is a genus within the family Felidae. The composition of a genus is determined by taxonomists. The standards for genus classification are not strictly codified, so different authorities often produce different classifications for genera. There are some general practices used, however, including the idea that a newly defined genus should fulfill these three criteria to be descriptively useful: # monophyly – all descendants of an ancestral taxon are grouped together (i.e. phylogenetic analysis should cl ...
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Dakota People
The Dakota (pronounced , Dakota language: ''Dakȟóta/Dakhóta'') are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government in North America. They compose two of the three main subcultures of the Sioux people, and are typically divided into the Eastern Dakota and the Western Dakota. The four bands of Eastern Dakota are the Bdewákaŋthuŋwaŋ, Waȟpéthuŋwaŋ, Waȟpékhute, and Sisíthuŋwaŋ and are sometimes referred to as the Santee (''Isáŋyathi'' or ''Isáŋ-athi''; "knife" + "encampment", "dwells at the place of knife flint"), who reside in the eastern Dakotas, central Minnesota and northern Iowa. They have federally recognized tribes established in several places. The Western Dakota are the Yankton, and the Yanktonai (''Iháŋktȟuŋwaŋ'' and ''Iháŋktȟuŋwaŋna''; "Village-at-the-end" and "Little village-at-the-end"), who reside in the Upper Missouri River area. The Yankton-Yanktonai are collectively also referred to by the endonym ''Wičhíyena'' ("Thos ...
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Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the Roman Republic it became the dominant language in the Italian region and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire. Even after the fall of Western Rome, Latin remained the common language of international communication, science, scholarship and academia in Europe until well into the 18th century, when other regional vernaculars (including its own descendants, the Romance languages) supplanted it in common academic and political usage, and it eventually became a dead language in the modern linguistic definition. Latin is a highly inflected language, with three distinct genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter), six or seven noun cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative, and vocative), five declensions, four verb conjug ...
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Late Cretaceous
The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', the Latin word for the white limestone known as chalk. The chalk of northern France and the white cliffs of south-eastern England date from the Cretaceous Period. Climate During the Late Cretaceous, the climate was warmer than present, although throughout the period a cooling trend is evident. The tropics became restricted to equatorial regions and northern latitudes experienced markedly more seasonal climatic conditions. Geography Due to plate tectonics, the Americas were gradually moving westward, causing the Atlantic Ocean to expand. The Western Interior Seaway divided North America into eastern and western halves; Appalachia and Laramidia. India maintained a northward course towards Asia. In the Southern Hemisphere, Australia an ...
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Furculae Wiki
The (Latin for "little fork") or wishbone is a forked bone found in most birds and some species of non-avian dinosaurs, and is formed by the fusion of the two pink clavicles. In birds, its primary function is in the strengthening of the thoracic skeleton to withstand the rigors of flight. In birds The furcula works as a strut between a bird's shoulders, and articulates to each of the bird's scapulae. In conjunction with the coracoid and the scapula, it forms a unique structure called the triosseal canal, which houses a strong tendon that connects the supracoracoideus muscles to the humerus. This system is responsible for lifting the wings during the recovery stroke. As the thorax is compressed by the flight muscles during downstroke, the upper ends of the furcula spread apart, expanding by as much as 50% of its resting width, and then contracts. X-ray films of starlings in flight have shown that in addition to strengthening the thorax, the furcula acts like a spring in the pe ...
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Sandstone
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) because they are the most resistant minerals to weathering processes at the Earth's surface. Like uncemented sand, sandstone may be any color due to impurities within the minerals, but the most common colors are tan, brown, yellow, red, grey, pink, white, and black. Since sandstone beds often form highly visible cliffs and other topographic features, certain colors of sandstone have been strongly identified with certain regions. Rock formations that are primarily composed of sandstone usually allow the percolation of water and other fluids and are porous enough to store large quantities, making them valuable aquifers and petroleum reservoirs. Quartz-bearing sandstone can be changed into quartzite through metamorphism, usually relate ...
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