Dinosaurs’ fossils have attracted paleontologists to the Badlands of Ghost Ranch, NM, since 1881. Here, they have found the best place to find early carnivorous dinosaurs in the world. This video is another in the Shelf Life series from the American Museum of Natural History.
After being unearthed, dinosaurs’ bones are very delicate, and paleontologists need to take really good care of them. Once they are safely brought to the Museum of Natural History, they are ready to be analyzed. By looking at dinosaurs’ fossils, researchers can figure out their age, metabolism, and growth rate. From there, it’s possible to understand how some of the evolutionary innovations happened.
Coelophysis set the standard for this body plan that we saw later carried to extremes in Tyrannosaurus and the Velociraptor. And this is the group that gave rise to birds.
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