A New Dinosaur
Lance Carson
A New Duck-Billed Dinosaur
Martha Carolina Aguillon Martinez, a Mexican paleontologist, discovered a dinosaur fossil after she had been teaching a group of young students how to dig for bones. Twelve years later, paleontologists finished unearthing her finding, which included a complete dinosaur skull, a bony crest, and parts of a skeleton. After examining the find, paleontologists concluded that the enormous, duck-billed crested dinosaur was a new species. They named the dinosaur, an adolescent when it died, Velafrons, which means "sailed forehead" in both Latin and Spanish.
A Strange-Looking Dino
Velafrons had strong hind legs with three toes and smaller forearms with four fingers and no thumbs and most likely used its long tail to maintain balance. It was a hefty creature, about the size of a Tyrannosaurus rex when fully grown, but Velafrons was a herbivore and therefore not likely ferocious. Velafrons is remarkable mainly because of its strange nasal cavities. Other duck-billed dinosaurs, called hadrosaurids, have noses in front of their eyes, but Velafrons's nose was on its head and it breathed through its bony crest. Paleontologists theorize that the creature's very long nasal passages gave it an exceptional sense of smell and most likely allowed it to make musical sounds similar to a trombone. These sounds would have been very loud, and these dinosaurs lived together in herds of hundreds, so the noise was probably deafening.
The Discovery's Significance
While most duck-billed dinosaurs have been discovered in Canada and Asia,Velafronsis is the first crested duck-billed dinosaur discovered in the United States. "Finding a fossil of a hadrosaurid in Mexico is especially significant since few dinosaur fossils have been discovered there—but this doesn't mean dinosaurs did not inhabit the area. The area has little erosion so most fossils remain buried under many feet of rock," explained Stacey Carver, a paleontologist with Mexico's Natural History Museum.
Velafrons was discovered in the southern tip of a landmass (now called Laramidia) that is similar to a peninsula and now a desert. Scientists believe that 72 million years ago Laramidia was an estuary, a place where saltwater from the ocean mixed with freshwater from rivers. The dinosaur fossils they have discovered support this hypothesis; they were buried with snails and clams, suggesting that they lived on a beach.
Masses of dinosaur bones found mixed together in this area indicate that many dinosaurs were wiped out at once, most likely from powerful storms that periodically plagued the area. Such storms may be responsible for the quick demise of Velafrons, which only existed for about one million years.
Sidebar:
Hadrosaurids—term meaning "bulky lizard" that is used to describe all species of duck-billed dinosaurs, which lived during the late Cretaceous period about 80 million years ago. These herbivores had about 1,000 molar-like teeth that they used to chew tough fibrous plants, many of which grew near water.
Hadrosaurids ranged in length from 10 to 40 feet and most had a thick torso, a heavy tail, and a beak shaped like a duck's bill. It is believed that they walked on two legs but may have walked on four legs when grazing.
Hadrosaurids can be divided into two groups: those with a crest on top of the head and those without. Archaeologists theorize that the crest was a nasal cavity that enabled the dinosaur to make a loud noise. These dinosaurs lived on land near water and were common throughout Europe, Asia, and North America.
Question
How is the sidebar of this passage related to the central ideas of the passage?
Responses
A The sidebar provides a contrasting perspective to the ideas presented in the larger passage.The sidebar provides a contrasting perspective to the ideas presented in the larger passage.
B The sidebar attempts to persuade the readers that the duck-billed dinosaur species is the best.The sidebar attempts to persuade the readers that the duck-billed dinosaur species is the best.
C The sidebar gives personal, emotive insight into the discoveries presented in the longer passage.The sidebar gives personal, emotive insight into the discoveries presented in the longer passage.
D The sidebar suggests how the duck-billed dinosaur species in general relate to the specific dinosaur Velafrons.