Ancient super crocodile fossil found in museum drawer

Long-forgotten remains of a long-forgotten species, have been discovered in a museum drawer in Scotland. The beast, a dolphin-shaped crocodilian "super predator," was able to eat other species its size and larger.

The ancient newfound crocodilian is named Tyrannoneustes lythrodectikos, Greek for "blood-biting tyrant swimmer." Sounds pretty friendly, doesn't it? "Tyrannoneustes was a dolphinlike crocodile that lived 165 million years ago," said researcher Mark Young, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and the University of Southampton in England.

The predator possessed a long snout, large flippers, armorless skin and a tail fin where the bottom half is larger than the top half, resembling an upside-down version of an ordinary shark's tail fin.It's uncertain how large Tyrannoneustes was, but the right side of its lower jaw was at least 26 inches (67 centimeters) long. It featured enlarged teeth with serrated edges, and a jaw that evolved to open wider, allowing it to swallow smaller prey whole.
Back when Tyrannoneustes was alive, the area in central England where the fossils were discovered was covered in a shallow sea encompassing much of what is now Europe. Originally found between 1907 and 1909, the fossil has been lost in a drawer at the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery in Glasgow for nearly 100 years.

There are no modern descendents of the animal. Instead, this predator was a kind of metriorhynchid, an extinct family of marine crocodiles.

The discovery of Tyrannoneustes shows that during the Middle Jurassic, metriorhynchid crocodiles were beginning to evolve into predators of large-bodied prey. By the Late Jurassic, numerous metriorhynchid species were suited to feeding on large prey, but Tyrannoneustes is the first known from the Middle Jurassic. How this impacted upon other predatory groups such as pliosaurs and ichthyosaurs is still unclear.
 

Future research can scan Tyrannoneustes bones to develop computer models of how it might have fed, Young said. He and his colleagues detailed their findings online Jan. 4 in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology.

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Rio de Janeiro: Bar Codes on Sidewalks Give Tourist Info

Rio de Janeiro is mixing technology with tradition to provide tourists information about the city by embedding bar codes into the black and white mosaic sidewalks that are a symbol of the city.

The city installed its first two-dimensional bar codes, or QR codes, as they're known, at Arpoador, the massive boulder that separates Copacabana and Ipanema beaches. The image was built into the sidewalk with the same black and white stones that decorate sidewalks around town with mosaics of waves, fish and abstract images.

With an accompanying smartphone application, onlookers were able to take snapshots of the mosaic QR codes with their phones or tablets before being directed to a website that disbursed information in Brazil's native Portuguese, and also in Spanish and English. A map of the area was also included.

They learned, for example, that Arpoador gets big waves, making it a hot spot for surfing and giving the 500-meter beach nearby the name of "Praia do Diabo," or Devil's Beach. They could also find out that the rock is called Arpoador because fishermen once harpooned whales off the shore.

Each stone code reportedly takes about seven days to construct due to the level of precision necessary to make it scan, though some future iterations will be constructed out of different recycled materials. The next four, expected by March, will pop up at Redra do Leme, Sao Conrado Beach, Mirante do Leblon and Pepe Beach in Barra da Tijuca.


The Department of Conservation said it plans to implement the co-called QRIO project at 30 locations across the city by the year’s end and 50 locations by July 2014 when Rio hosts the FIFA World Cup.

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Bigfoot In Oregon? Strange Bloodcurdling Noises In Pendleton Swamp

Is there a bigfoot in Oregon?

The sounds of cries and roars can be heard throughout the Umatilla Indian Reservation near Pendleton, The Oregonian reports Jan. 25. The reservation is home to about 1,500 people across 178,000 acres in Oregon’s Blue Mountains. The possible Bigfoot noises were heard near an old reservation community center just north of Wilhorse Resort and Casino. Residents first started hearing the noises last month, and rumors quickly spread that it could be a mythical ape-like humanoid creature, Bigfoot.

Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch, is the name given to the mysterious ape-like creature that some people believe inhabits forests, mainly in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. Scientists discount the existence of Bigfoot, usually described as a large, hairy, bipedal humanoid, and consider it to be a combination of folklore, misidentification, and hoax.

Among some Native American tribes in the Pacific Northwest, however, the Bigfoot is not to be taken lightly. Stories about the hominid hairy creatures roaming the forests of the region have been passed down from generation to generation in some tribal cultures, so when the screeches first drifted over the swampland, it did not take much to convince the locals that those were the cries of Bigfoot.

According to the Oregon Live, the eerie late-night sounds, which range from high-pitched screams to basso profundo roars, started in November and have caused bigfoot rumors to spread. Several reservation unit tenants and home owners call authorities to report the strange sounds. One man even claimed his dog was too afraid to go outside.

One said the cries were made by "a young Bigfoot that had got separated from the rest of his clan." The howls also make some believe the animal making those noises are foxes or a female coyote.

So far no one has been able to nail down exactly what the source is of the spooky sounds. For decades many have believed Bigfoot does, in fact, live in Oregon within its thick forests. Reported Examiner...

Carl Sheeler, wildlife program manager for the Walla Walla and Cayuse tribes, said the strange noises may just be from animals known to live in the area.

But some of those who have heard the sounds don't agree with Sheeler. "Foxes do sound creepy," said Sylvia Minthorn. "But it's not the same sound, not even close."

Did Oregon residents within the reservation actually hear Bigfoot? Enthusiasts of the creature think that they are getting closer to finding the elusive Bigfoot, and sightings continue. Late last year, a group of hikers in Utah encountered what they thought was a bear, but then the animal turned and stood on two legs, looking very much like Bigfoot.

Sasquatch Watch Canada posted a recording of the howls to Youtube. Listen to them below:

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Deaf Bulldog dancing to Guitar vibrations

Just because you're deaf doesn't mean you can't enjoy the vibrations produced by music. Which is what Jamynne Bowle's English bulldog demonstrates when the deaf pooch feels the blues. Video of deaf dog rocking back and forth in time to the twelve-bar blues a friend chugs out on their acoustic guitar, has more than 30,000 shares since it was posted on Facebook in December.

Some commentators have tried to spoil the fun by claiming the dog is only scratching its butt on the carpet, but he's surprisingly in-time with the music.

Website that deals with dogs, "For the Love of Dog" assumes that bulldog actually feel vibrations and dance in the rhythm, according to "Daily Mail".

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