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Retracing the Tracks of Dinosaurs Reveals Ecosystem the Size of a Continent

marco_polo · 2010-04-26 20:55:46

Some interesting research here, it has long been suspected by many palaeontologists that to in order to support such large predators and herbivores, dinosaur ecosystem would have had to be much larger than present day one. New research lends considerable weight to such theories and incicate that such ecosystems may have…

26-04-2010 9:55pm

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marco_polo

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Some interesting research here, it has long been suspected by many palaeontologists that to in order to support such large predators and herbivores, dinosaur ecosystem would have had to be much larger than present day one. New research lends considerable weight to such theories and incicate that such ecosystems may have spanned entire continents.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100421223712.htm

The discovery was made by McGill Professor Hans Larsson and Matthew Vavrek, a PhD student at the University. Using data from the Paleobiology Database (http://www.paleodb.org/), they found that the difference in species between regions over North America was relatively low -- low enough to consider it a single homogeneous fauna. The finding is significant as it confirms that dinosaur ecosystems may have been as large as continents. The paper is published in the April 19 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The 'Western Interior' region that the article refers to is the the modern day west cost of america. The geology of America roughtly 100 MYA is detailed in this map.

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