Fossil dinosaur slept like a bird
Michael Hopkin
'Sleeping dragon' may have been trying to stay warm while it snoozed.

The angst-ridden Prince Hamlet described death as an eternal sleep,
fearfully wondering what dreams may come during the everlasting slumber. So
perhaps he would have empathized with a dinosaur newly unearthed in China:
it seems to have been preserved in the act of sleeping.

The dinosaur, named Mei long, or 'soundly sleeping dragon', has lain
undisturbed for almost 140 million years. But its sleeping posture is
strikingly similar to that of modern birds, showing that this position might
have evolved before they did.

M. long seems to have died with its hindlimbs folded underneath it and its
head tucked under one forelimb, just as birds roost with their head under
their wing. It is the oldest known fossil found in this posture, say its
discoverers, Xing Xu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and Mark
Norell of the American Museum of Natural History, New York, in Nature this
week1.

Full Text at Nature
http://www.nature.com/news/2004/041011/full/041011-7.html

Comment:
Apparently dinosaur eggs is one of my favourite foods.

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek
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