© WikipediaDakotaraptor.
Archaeologists claim to have found the remains of one of the world's biggest raptors, which hunted for prey, armed with large claws and wings, some 66 million years ago. They've named the beast, discovered in South Dakota's Hell Creek Formation,
Dakotaraptor steini.
"It could run very fast, it could jump incredibly well, it was agile and it had essentially grappling hooks on the front and rear limbs. These claws could grab on to anything and just slice them to bits. It was utterly lethal," Robert DePalma, head of the research team that discovered the fossils and curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Palm Beach Museum of Natural History, told
The Guardian.
The new dinosaur was discovered in 2005. "It really was the Ferrari of competitors," DePalma noted.
Dakotaraptor is estimated to have been around 16 feet (4.9 meters) in length, making it one of the most dangerous raptors known, according to D-Brief, a Discover Magazine blog. It was still reportedly smaller than the 22-foot-long (6.7 meters) Utahraptor. The Dakotaraptor is the largest dinosaur found with true wings, D-Brief said.
According to a study, published by the University of Kansas Paleontological Institute, the dinosaur also had "quill knobs" or papilli, on its arm bone, which "is our first clear evidence for feather quills on a large dromaeosaurid forearm and impacts evolutionary reconstructions and functional morphology of such derived, typically flight-related feature," the researchers wrote in the
study.
Although the Dakotaraptor had feathers and wings, it couldn't fly, probably because of its giant size. Its wings, the study suggested, could have played a role in hunting strategy, mating display and aggressive territorial behavior.
Meanwhile "the most scary thing" about Dakotaraptors, a study co-author David Burnham told the
Guardian, was their sickle claw. It measured about 9.5 inches (24 centimeters) along the outer curve and is "bigger than anything" Burnham has seen in this category of dinosaur.
"It's very laterally compressed so that means it was probably made for piercing flesh," the paleontologist said. "It's not a big, fat claw like on a T-Rex or something. It's not just going to stomp you to death or bone-crush you to death. No, these things would slice and dice."
While the research on the new dinosaur is still ongoing, the next challenge is to find the still-missing skull.
"We found some loose teeth but we never found the skull," Burnham told the newspaper. "It's kind of the lottery prize for paleontologists if you get the head of the animal."
by Babu G. Ranganathan
(B.A. Bible/Biology)
NOT MILLIONS OF YEARS OLD! Evolutionary dating methods are not infallible science, are based on certain built-in assumptions, and have been proven to be contradictory and inconsistent. Please read my popular Internet article, ARE FOSSILS REALLY MILLIONS OF YEARS OLD?
There is absolutely no proof of macro-evolution in the fossil record. The fossils of all species are found complete (not partially-evolved) with no evidence of actual transition from one kind to another. There are no fossils of fish, for example, with part fins, part feet to show that transition occurred from fins to feet. Besides this, partially-evolved species would be unfit for survival while waiting to be completed over millions of years.
The fossils show that all life came into existence as complete and fully-formed from the beginning, which is only possible by creation.
The fossil layers in the real world are not even found in the sequence taught in evolutionary textbooks. There are many places where fossils of complex creatures are found beneath simpler ones, and there are fossils of mixed species existing in the same stratum which classic evolutionary textbooks teach should have been separated by millions of years.
There’s a lot of evidence that the fossil layers were not deposited by gradual floods, which would have required millions of years. Rather, the evidence strongly points to a one world-wide flood that fossilized species, just as the Bible teaches. All the fossils that have been used to support human evolution have been found to be either hoaxes, non-human, or human, but not non-human and human.
Visit my newest Internet site: THE SCIENCE SUPPORTING CREATION
Author of the popular Internet article, TRADITIONAL DOCTRINE OF HELL EVOLVED FROM GREEK ROOTS
*I have given successful lectures (with question and answer period afterwards) defending creation before evolutionist science faculty and students at various colleges and universities. I've been privileged to be recognized in the 24th edition of Marquis "Who's Who in The East."
NATURAL LIMITS TO EVOLUTION: Only evolution within biological "kinds" is genetically possible (i.e. varieties of dogs, cats, etc.), but not evolution across biological "kinds" (i.e. from sea sponge to human). How could species have survived if their vital tissues, organs, reproductive systems, etc. were still evolving? Survival of the fittest actually would have prevented evolution across biological kinds! A true transitional form would be unfit for survival. For example, “if a leg of a reptile were to evolve (over supposedly millions of years) into a wing of a bird, it would become a bad leg long before it became a good wing” (Dr. Walt Brown, scientist and creationist). Survival of the fittest actually would have prevented evolution across biological kinds! Read my Internet article: WAR AMONG EVOLUTIONISTS! (2nd Edition).
Natural selection doesn't produce biological traits or variations. It can only "select" from biological variations that are possible and which have survival value. The real issue is what biological variations are possible, not natural selection. Only limited evolution, variations of already existing genes and traits, is possible. Nature is mindless and has no ability to design and program entirely new genes for entirely new traits. Evolutionists believe and hope that, over supposedly millions of years, random genetic mutations in the genetic code caused by environmental radiation will generate entirely new genes. This is total blind and irrational faith on the part of evolutionists. It's much like believing that randomly changing the sequence of letters in a romance novel, over millions of years, will turn it into a book on astronomy! That's the kind of blind faith macro-evolutionists have.
Mutations are accidents in the genetic code, are mostly harmful, and have no capability of producing greater complexity in the code. Even if a good accident occurred, for every good one there would be hundreds of harmful ones with the net result, over time, being harmful, even lethal, to the species. At best, mutations only produce further variations within a natural species. Even so, mutations are not the best explanation for variations within a natural species.
If life on earth had really existed for millions of years, all species would have become extinct by now due to the colossal number of accumulated mutations over time (please read the author’s popular Internet article, ARE FOSSILS REALLY MILLIONS OF YEARS OLD?).
What about "Junk DNA?" It's not junk. It's we who were ignorant of their usefulness. These so-called "non-coding" segments of DNA have recently been shown to be vital in regulating gene expression (i.e. when, where, and how genes are expressed, so they're not "junk"). Even more recent scientific evidence shows that they do code for proteins, after all, and that we need to readjust our thinking of how the cell reads the genetic code (Read "Human Proteome More Complex Than Previously Thought," Internet article by Dr. Jeffrey Tomkins). Read my popular Internet article: HOW FORENSIC SCIENCE REFUTES ATHEISM
Since it's not rational to believe genetic information can arise by chance, it is totally rational to believe that God (the Supreme Genetic Engineer) placed within all natural species, in the beginning, with all of the recessive and dominant genes to produce all of the variations found within natural species (i.e. varieties of dogs, cats, horses, cows, etc.).
Since genetic information, like other forms of information, cannot arise by chance, it is far more logical to believe that the genetic and biological similarities between various species are due to a common Designer (Creator) who designed similar functions for similar purposes in all the various forms of life.
Author of popular Internet article, TRADITIONAL DOCTRINE OF HELL EVOLVED FROM GREEK ROOTS
*I have given successful lectures (with question and answer period afterwards) defending creation before evolutionist science faculty and students at various colleges and universities. I've been privileged to be recognized in the 24th edition of Marquis "Who's Who in The East" for my writings on religion and science.
NOT DINOSAUR FEATHERS! There's a lot of hype out there in the media. Read the interesting Internet article by biologist and creationist Brian Thomas, FEATHERS MISSING FROM 'FEATHERED DINOSAUR' DISPLAY. What some interpret as feathers may have been nothing more than "artifacts of the fossilization process, or partly decayed skin fibers." There's strong evidence that other structures interpreted as feathers are woolly plumages and collagen fibers. A few evolutionists (not even most) interpret these structures as proto-feathers and have artists drawing dinosaurs with fancy feathers
for magazines and newspapers!
MICRORAPTOR WASN'T A DINOSAUR! It was a bird, a unique bird with four wings (it had fully-formed feathers!), but evolutionists classified it as a dinosaur to fit their
theory. All of its traits were fully-formed and developed (not in a transitional state, i.e. part scales/part feathers). Species in a true transitional state wouldn't be fit for survival because their traits wouldn't be fully-developed or formed. Imagine a dinosaur with limbs evolving into wings and feathers over millions of years. It couldn't fully use its limbs and it couldn't fully use its wings and feathers. How would it be fit for survival over millions of years while it was evolving?
Read the excellent Internet article, IS NEW FOSSIL A BIRD-EATING DINOSAUR? by biologist and creationist Brian Thomas.
Read my popular Internet articles, NO HALF-EVOLVED DINOSAURS, NATURAL LIMITS OF EVOLUTION, FISH DNA DOESN'T SUPPORT EVOLUTION OF LIMBS
Visit my popular Internet site, THE SCIENCE SUPPORTING CREATION
Author of the popular Internet article, TRADITIONAL DOCTRINE OF HELL EVOLVED FROM GREEK ROOTS