- Generations of children have been captivated by their
ferocity, size and speed, not to mention their scary flesh-shredding teeth.
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- But the popular bloodthirsty image of dinosaurs such
as Tyrannosaurus Rex today suffers a blow after a remarkable fossil find
in China.
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- It reveals that some of them were, if not exactly cuddly,
then at the very least loving and caring parents.
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- Palaeontologists discovered a 125 million-year-old basin-like
nest, preserved in red-grey mudstone in Liaoning province, in which an
adult Psittacosaurus sp - a "parrot-lizard" named after its strong
beak - is surrounded by 34 babies at the moment they faced a mortal threat.
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- The sight of a parent with young huddled at its feet
provides "strong evidence" that even dinosaur youngsters may
have enjoyed some motherly love, the scientists report in the journal Nature.
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- Dr David Varricchio, of Montana State University, and
his colleagues in China found no isolated bones or partial skeletons at
the site and speculate that the nest could have been enveloped in a Pompeii-like
cloud of suffocating gas and dust from a volcanic eruption, been trapped
in an underground burrow that collapsed or been hit by sudden, dramatic
flooding.
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- The baby dinosaurs all showed a consistent pattern of
preservation in an upright pose, like the adult - implying that they could
have been buried alive before having had a chance to react and escape.
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- The proximity of the adult and baby skeletons is consistent
with parental care after the young had hatched, the experts believe. The
babies are well developed and much bigger than hatchlings, suggesting that
the adult had already put in some quality parenting time with its young.
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- The fossil, from an area in the northern Liaoning province
rich in feathered dinosaurs, is now in the Dalian museum in China.
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- Psittacosaurus, which stood about 4ft tall, was a plant-eater
with strong back legs and two smaller front legs. It could either stand
up to reach for vegetation or run on all fours to escape predators.
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- Although modern descendants, the archosaurs, such as
crocodilians and birds, are conscientious parents - helping their young
hatch, protecting them from predators, feeding them and providing warmth
and shelter - today's find reinforces the suggestion that this is an ancient
parental imperative.
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- In 1997, Dr Varricchio published evidence that dinosaurs
tended their babies in a similar way to ducks today, sitting on their nests
and leading the hatched youngsters about as they fed themselves.
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- © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2004. http://telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/09/
09/wdino09.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/09/09/ixnewstop.html
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