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https://news.utexas.edu/2018/06/20/t-rex-couldn-t-stick-out-its-tongue:
Dinosaurs are often depicted as fierce creatures, baring their teeth, with tongues wildly stretching from their mouths like giant, deranged lizards. But new research reveals a major problem with this classic image: Dinosaurs couldn't stick out their tongues like lizards. Instead, their tongues were probably rooted to the bottoms of their mouths in a manner akin to alligators.
Researchers from The University of Texas at Austin and the Chinese Academy of Sciences made the discovery by comparing the hyoid bones — the bones that support and ground the tongue — of modern birds and crocodiles with those of their extinct dinosaur relatives. In addition to challenging depictions of dino tongues, the research proposes a connection on the origin of flight and an increase in tongue diversity and mobility.
The research was published June 20 in the journal PLOS ONE.
The comparison process involved taking high-resolution images of hyoid muscles and bones from 15 modern specimens, including three alligators and 13 bird species as diverse as ostriches and ducks, at the Jackson School’s High-Resolution X-Ray Computed Tomography Facility (UTCT). The fossil specimens, most from northeastern China, were scrutinized for preservation of the delicate tongue bones and included small bird-like dinosaurs, as well as pterosaurs and a Tyrannosaurus rex.
The results indicate that hyoid bones of most dinosaurs were like those of alligators and crocodiles — short, simple and connected to a tongue that was not very mobile. Co-author and Jackson School Professor Julia Clarke said that these findings mean that dramatic reconstructions that show dinosaurs with tongues stretching out from between their jaws are wrong.
[...] The study was funded by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, the Smithsonian Institution and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.
Journal Reference:
- Zhiheng Li, Zhonghe Zhou, Julia A. Clarke. Convergent evolution of a mobile bony tongue in flighted dinosaurs and pterosaurs. PLOS ONE, 2018; 13 (6): e0198078 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0198078
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 15 2018, @06:15PM (5 children)
None of the first fifty images from searching "trex" on bing show its tongue out of its mouth.
None of the first fifty images from searching "Raptor Dinosaur"* on bing show its tongue out of its mouth.
Did somebody literally just make up a sterotype so they can pretend its been disproven, or am I unlucky in my searches?
*The second term I tried, after "raptor" just returned cars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 15 2018, @08:08PM (1 child)
Soon you'll have stories about how water is wet and that Trump is actually great.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 15 2018, @08:27PM
AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
-Kipling
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 15 2018, @08:16PM (2 children)
Ditto. Page after page of images for "tyrannosaurus", and not one tongue hanging out. That goes for more scientific images, as well as cartoon images. The most prominent tongues look like dog's tongues, but none protrude past the teeth. Most images that even bother to show a tongue, seem to suggest that the tongue didn't even reach the front teeth - about halfway up the jaw seems to be the standard.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 15 2018, @09:08PM
Of the types of critters mentioned, the only one where I remember seeing a tongue was the Looney Tunes Roadrunner [google.com] (sticking it out at the coyote).
A tricked-out version [google.com] of the Plymouth car model [google.com] which used a logo [google.com] consisting of the cartoon bird had a horn that tried to duplicate the sound used to accompany that gesture found in the animated presentations.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 16 2018, @02:42AM
Ive seen an artistic photo of a trexish dino with a slavering tongue out.
Regardless, they are simply reporting new findings not refuting some massively believed error.