Birdlike dinosaurs newly unearthed in Utah may be a missing link between primitive meat-eating creatures and more evolved vegetarians, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday. The 125-million-year-old fossils show features of two-legged carnivorous dinosaurs called maniraptorans, from which birds are believed to have evolved, they said. The fossils also have leaf-shaped teeth, stubby legs and the expansive bellies of plant-eaters, the researchers reported in this week's issue of the journal Nature. The new species is named Falcarius utahensis, meaning "sickle-maker from Utah." "Falcarius is literally a missing link," Scott Sampson, chief curator at the Utah Museum of Natural History, told a news conference. "Falcarius is kind of half-raptor and half herbivore. This transition is triggered by a shift in diet." It appeared at around the time that tasty, nutritious, flowering plants appeared on Earth, he said. "We know that the first dinosaur was a small-bodied, lightly built, fleet-footed predator," Sampson added. All other dinosaurs evolved from it. "However, as with many radiations of major groups of animals, it happened so quickly that we really don't have much in the way of fossil documentation." Falcarius provides part of the picture, he said.

The adult Falcarius would have walked on two legs and was about 13 feet long and 4.5 feet tall. It had strong forearms, sharp, curved, 4-inch (10 centimeter) claws and a long neck. FEATHERED FIEND? It probably had feathers and is the earliest North American example of a therizinosaur, a group that includes feathered dinosaurs found in southeast China and maniraptorans, including the Velociraptor, perhaps best known from the novel and film "Jurassic Park."

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I don't believe in 'missing links'. I mean if the whole Evolution rah rah rah thingy was true then how come I don't see a monkey evole into a person now? Or a dog evolve into a whale? I WANT MY MONKEY MAN!!!!

Once again, the reason why people don't accept evolution, is because they don't understand it. Case in point, the post above mine. Evolution is the slow adaption of a species to it's environment. A whale is perfectly suited to it's environment, why would it evolve into something that isn't?
And you don't see it, because it takes hundreds of millions of years.




Anyway, this is great, i was reading up about it in the paper today.
A dinosaur in the very verge of evolution, from a carnivore to a herbivore. Also it's bone structure shows it's evolutionary process from lizard to bird. Astounding.

Sometimes I wonder what it would take... but then I realize.. their minds are so set in the way, that every evidance found... will be ignored so they can stay in thier own world.

I grow tired of this...

The find is astonishing, and I hope we continue to learn more and more about prehistorical evolutionary processes...

Every discovery helps us understand our own evolutionary process better.

Yush! And I love every moment we find something like this! It makes the paleantologist in me tickled pink >D

If you don't understand and clearly you do NOT. Get an EDUCATION!

Missing link? This is just another dinosaur. It even says there isn't that much evidence of it. If ALL dinosaurs came from it, they should be everywhere, not just in Utah. There's nothing astounding about this. It's an omnivore. There are omnivores around today. You're all one of them (unless you're a vegetarian). Also please tell me how the hell this is a 'birdlike dinosaurs' from where birds evolved if this is where all the carnivorous dinosaurus like T-Rex evolved after it. T-Rex was no bird and Velociraptors did NOT have feathers. It's in the wrong part of this supposed timeline, it should be around AFTER the T-rex et al, hnot what they evolved from.

I too want to see a monkey man. Oh monkey man, where art thou?

Don't tell people to get an education that don't accept evolution. There are many that are well aware of what it entails and don't accept it. Some of which are scientists, and even a percentage of them are athiests. Just like there are people who don't accept God, there are those that don't accept Evolution, and still others that accept neither. It has nothing to do with education. Deal with it.

They have also found evidence of feathered dinosaurs in China, I've seen the fossil with my own two eyes. It was a Velociraptor, odly enough. It didn't have actual feathers when they uncovered it though, just the fine straw like stalks that feathers come out of. Allthough scientists tend not to make theories official until after they have enough evidence. This is of course no more than another piece of evidence.

And as far as birds evolving from dinosaurs goes, it makes perfect sence. I'm sure Colonel Sanders would have salivated over the drumstick on a T-rex.

Because a human is not the "goal" of evolution. Take for instance this example: Our ancestor branched off into 2 new species... humans and bonobos... Its like we're brothers and sisters... we're related to them. Theres no reason for them to evolve into humans... not everything evolves into humans.



Not necessairly... they could have been very confined... to a small area or a continental area... or, we just havent found other fossils yet.



He's not... he's telling the ones that dont understand evolution to get educated on the subject before crying out that its false and doesnt make sense.

I think if you read the first post again you will see it says "a missing link" not "the missing link". This dinosaur shows the transition from carnivore to herbivore for a specific group of dinosaurs called Therizinosaurs, it doesn't say anywhere that it was a link between ALL dinosaurs.

Here are some nice pictures of it:Pictures of a Newly Discovered U.S. Dinosaur

*Thanks God she evolved into a human being
Now I just wonder what humans will have evolved into, in a million years, maybe the dinosaurs will make a come back, just like that woodpeecker
Create what you need to evolve
P.S. I know I get way to goofy - sometimes