image stats
rating
3.15
votes
164
views
4534
uploader
fossil_digger
comments
2
date added
2007-06-05
category
Sport
previous votes
Loading..
Psittacosaurus 65 Million Years Old
1 star2 stars3 stars4 stars5 stars
Psittacosaurus 65 Million Years Old

"a skeleton of a dinosaur on a stand"

Rate image:
[ | | ]
[ | ]
Comments for: Psittacosaurus 65 Million Years Old
fossil_digger Report This Comment
Date: June 05, 2007 05:27AM

This real three dimensional Dinosaur is of Museum quality. All of the fossilized bones are real and belonging. They were all carefully and painstakingly chiseled out of the surrounding Matrix and mounted together by professional paleontologist, preserving the anatomical position and inter-relation with extreme accuracy. A superb masterpiece specimen at a reasonable price, mounted on a quality wooden stand. A similarly articulated specimen of Tyranosaurus Rex sold in the US last year for millions of dollars. The species of this Dinosaur is Psittacosaurus Xingjiangensis and originates from the Cretaceous Period: It is over 65 million years old. Size: 13.5 inches high at the hip.
35 inches long. Originally found in Inner Mongolia. Ex English private collection. This Dinosaur was a gazelle sized bipetal herbivore about 2m long. It had a high powerful beak on the upper jaw, and vestigial forelimbs probably seldomly used for walking. It also had quill-like structures on its tail and lower back, used for display. Fossils from 150 such dinosaurs have been hitherto collected, including a small number of complete ones, such as this one. Psittacosaurus was named by the President of the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) - Henry Fairfield Osborn - in 1923. The parrot-like beak of these animals and their reptilian nature, earned them the Greek name Psittacosaurus, which means "parrot like lizard".
Psittacosaurus was a herbivore, eating plants. It had self sharpening teeth for cropping and slicing tough plant material. It could not however grind or chew food; like some modern birds, it relied on astroliths - swallowed stones - to instigate the initial stages of digestion. Around 50 such stones have been found in the stomachs of some specimens. A juvenile Psittacosaurus in the AMNH measures 5 inches long. At 3 years old the animal weighed about 1 kg; at 9 years of age it weighed around 20 kg. An adult specimen found in the Liaoning Province of China, was associated with 34 articulated juvenile skeletons, probably not all belonging to the same mother. It has been speculated that these dinosaurs may have been engaged in communal nesting, a bit like some ostriches today. There is little doubt that this relatively small herbivorous dinosaur acted as prey for other larger carnivorous creatures of this period. Another Chinese fossil of Repenomanus giganticus, a large cat-like carnivore, has been found preserved with the remains of a juvenile Psittacosaurus in its abdominal cavity.
Price: $9,900.00
Onyma Report This Comment
Date: June 05, 2007 10:27AM

Very nice. Doesn't look a day over 64 million.