It is bitterly cold on the deck of the Allankay and the bosun, Luca Massari, is checking that none of us are wearing contact lenses before we descend into Antarctic waters. There is a risk, he warns, that lenses will freeze solid over the eyes. Massari himself is prepared for his surroundings. He is wearing thick goggles that make him look like an Olympic ski jumper. Massari is a burly, heavily tattooed veteran of the environmental organisation Sea Shepherd, which campaigns against exploitating the oceans. His deck team are preparing…
Tag: Zoology
‘Not always king’: fossil shows mammal sinking teeth into dinosaur
Whether they had sharp teeth, vicious claws or were simply enormous, dinosaurs were creatures to be feared. But a newly identified fossil shows that, at least sometimes, the underdog bit back. Experts revealed the 125m-year-old fossil that froze in time after being taken on by a small mammal a third of its size. They are tangled together, the mammal’s teeth sunk into the beaked dinosaur’s ribs, its left paw clasping the beast’s lower jaw. Researchers said the discovery challenged a long-held view of early mammals as “fodder” for dinosaurs. Dr…
‘Gargantuan’: China fossils reveal 70-tonne dinosaur had 15-metre neck
A dinosaur that roamed east Asia more than 160m years ago has been named a contender for the animal with the longest neck ever known. A new analysis of bones from the beast’s neck and skull revealed that the dinosaur, known as Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum, sported a neck 15metres long, or one-and-a-half times the length of a doubledecker bus. The fossilised remains of the creature were recovered in 1987 from 162 million-year-old rocks in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of north-west China, but the full length of the animal’s neck was…