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posted by janrinok on Tuesday September 04 2018, @07:12AM   Printer-friendly
from the still-a-lot-to-learn dept.

Two newly discovered dinosaurs may be missing links in an unusual lineage of predators that lived between 160 million and 90 million years ago, new research suggests.

The two species, Xiyunykus and Bannykus, were theropods a group of bipedal, largely carnivorous dinosaurs. Some theropods eventually gave rise to birds, while another branch, the alvarezsauroids, evolved into strange-looking insectivores with short arms and hands with an enlarged finger for digging into nests.

But until now, little was understood about how this change happened because of the 70-million-year evolutionary gap separating the insect-eating alvarezsauroids from the earliest known member of the group, Haplocheirus.

"The significance of Xiyunykus and Bannykus is that they fall within that gap and shed light on patterns of evolution within Alvarezsauroidea," explained Corwin Sullivan, a University of Alberta paleontologist who participated in the international study.

"These specimens greatly improve the scientific community's understanding of the early stages of alvarezsauroid evolution and give us a better idea of what early alvarezsauroids were like."


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 04 2018, @12:24PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 04 2018, @12:24PM (#730205)

    How can a science site get it this wrong?

  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday September 04 2018, @01:12PM (4 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 04 2018, @01:12PM (#730220) Journal
    The genera mentioned in the art drawing: Haplocheirus, Xiyunykus, Bannykus and Shuvuuia all contain single species. So how wrong is it to refer to genera with single species instances as species? Answer: not very wrong.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 04 2018, @03:46PM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 04 2018, @03:46PM (#730288)

      Very incorrect, because only the generic epithet is mentioned in the summary. A species name is a binomen, so either mention the full binomen (that is, both the generic and specific epithet) or refer to them as monotypic genera.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 04 2018, @10:30PM (2 children)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 04 2018, @10:30PM (#730515) Journal

        Very incorrect, because only the generic epithet is mentioned in the summary.

        There was no possibility for confusion about what species was being named. And it was half of the proper name for the species. So I'm just not seeing the very incorrectness of this error.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 04 2018, @11:00PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 04 2018, @11:00PM (#730533)

          This is not about errors, this is about correct usage of scientific and taxonomic terminology. You just don't do what they did there in the field.

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 05 2018, @02:02AM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 05 2018, @02:02AM (#730586) Journal

            This is not about errors, this is about correct usage of scientific and taxonomic terminology.

            Let's review the definition of error [oxforddictionaries.com]. While it has several other meanings, these two are relevant:

            1. A mistake.

            1.1. The state or condition of being wrong in conduct or judgement.

            In other words, when you speak of incorrect usage, you speak of error. And as I already noted, they weren't significantly in error. Recall we live in a world with incredibly shitty scientific reporting. Mixing up genera with species (especially in the situation where all of the genera involved have one species!) doesn't even ping for me. I'm pleased that the reporting was relatively accurate and non-hysterical.