Theropod Discovery Challenges the Dinosaur-to-Bird Theory :: Anthropology Essays Paleontology Papers

Theropod baring Challenges the Dinosaur-to-Bird Theory For years, it has been believed that Dinosaurs are ancestors of fresh daytime birds. By simply aspect at pictures of dinosaurs, one can find many physical homogeneousities amid these reptiles and modern day birds. Often the legs and the chest cavities are very similar in shape. Some dinosaurs engage limbs that look ilk they could evolve into modern day wings, some dinosaurs even had feathers (6). A recent discovery in Italy of an extremely well hold Scipionyx samniticus challenges this idea. The skeleton of this small Therapod was nearly complete, further more impressively, there was still remnants of soft tissue. Portions of the Trachea, the liver, the skeletal go through, and the intestines were still preserved (1). Scipionyx is a small meat-eating dinosaur that lived in the early Cretaceous. It has sharp dentition and claws, with powerful hind legs. The fourth maxillary tooth is longer than the rest to the h ighest degree giving the Scipionyx a vampire-like look. It has a long tail that aided in its balance, very large eyes and was most likely a small, besides quick hunter (3). It lived in what is now Italy. The skeleton that was found was a nine inch newborn, but some scientists think that a overflowing grown Scipionyx can reach up to ten feet in length (3). The Scipionyx also possess an enormous hand which is common to the maniraptors (3). This group includes dinosaurs like the velociraptor. The Scipionyx was so well preserved in limestone, that using an ultra-violet light, one could spawn almost an X-ray of the baby Therapod (5). The internal organs of this dinosaur are roughly similar to that of a crocodile. For example, the Trachea is well situated in the vertebral column (1). In birds, the Tracheas is usually adjacent to the vertebral column. Similarly to the crocodile, the Scipionyxs liver is placed ahead of the large intestine (1). The Scipionyx has small groups of muscle fibers that seem to be diaphragmatic musculature (1). Again, these are similar to that of modern day crocodiles. The diaphragmatic musculature aides in diaphragm assisted breathing, which allows modern-day crocodiles to have burst-like movements (1). These traits are not consistent with an avian style, air sac helping which is typical of birds (1). The diaphragm was shown to divide the body into two offsets. One part contained the heart and the lungs, the other had the intestines, and the entrails (2).