☆更新ニュース☆ ホームページ内の『恐竜百科事典』は、着々と６４４種類の恐竜の説明を作り上げております。７月２０日、日本名未記載の恐竜達の記入をしました。

News

クイーンズランド州ウイントンで新たな３種の下記恐竜が発見されました。
2009年７月３日
Australovenator (Banjo), Diamantinasaurus (Matilda) and Wintonotitan (Clancy)
　　　　

２００５年３月５日ＰＭ９：４５　ABCニュースで次の様に報じられていました。

内容は３８０万年前から４００万年前の２足歩行する人間の様な生物のスケルトンを発掘したそうです。

Scientists unearth world's oldest biped skeleton

A joint Ethiopian-United States team of paleontologists has announced the discovery of the world's oldest biped (two-footed) skeleton to be unearthed so far, dating it to between 3.8 and four million years old.

"This is the world's oldest biped," Bruce Latimer, director of the natural history museum in Cleveland, Ohio, said told a news conference in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, adding that "it will revolutionise the way we see human evolution."

The bones were found three weeks ago in Ethiopia's Afar region, at a site some 60 kilometres from Hadar where Lucy, one of the first hominids, was discovered in 1974.

The Leakey Foundation, which funded the team who found Lucy, dates her 40 per cent intact skeleton back 2.8 million years, but other paleontological sources have said she may be as old as 3.2 million years.

Mr Latimer and his Ethiopian colleague Yohannes Haile-Selassie said the newly discovered skeleton had been determined to be capable of walking upright on two feet because of the nature of the ankle bone.

"I couldn't explain in detail how it walked yet," he said, "but looking at the ankle, we know it is a biped."

Researchers at the site in north-east Ethiopia have in all unearthed 12 ho??minid fossils, of which parts of one skeleton were discovered.

"Portions recovered thus far include a complete tibia, parts of a femur, ribs, vertebrae, a clavicle, pelvis, and a complete scapula of an adult," he said.

"Normally, you find one bone or two from an individual and you are happy. Now we have found parts of a skeleton, this is very rare.

"It says a lot more on the individual than isolated bones."

"But we have hundreds of pieces that have to be reconstructed and we haven't finished excavating ... it is already clear that the individual was larger than Lucy, it has longer legs than Lucy ... but it is older which is strange."

The skeleton is the fourth ancient hominid to be found since Lucy, with others discovered in Ethiopia and in South Africa.

The researchers have yet to determine the species and sex of the latest discovery.