Day At The Beach Ruined By This

Fossil of Giant 'Sea Monster' Found

OSLO (Feb. 27) - The fossil of a 50 ft. long "sea monster" found in Arctic Norway was the biggest of its kind known to science with dagger-like teeth in a mouth large enough to bite a small car, researchers said on Wednesday.

The 150-million year old dinosaur-era pliosaur, a fierce marine reptile, was about16 ft. 5 in. longer than the previous pliosaur record holder found in Australia.

"It's a new species and the biggest proven pliosaur," Joern Hurum, a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in Oslo who led the expedition to dig up the fossil on the archipelago of Svalbard 800 miles from the North Pole."

"A small car could fit inside its mouth," he told Reuters, adding the lower jaw was about 10 ft long."

Something like a Morris Minor would fit perfectly.

"The Museum said that pliosaurs were the top marine predators of the Jurassic era, preying upon squid-like animals, fish, and other marine reptiles.

Another type of fossil marine reptile, the ichthyosaur, was bigger at up to 75 ft. "The pliosaur is not the biggest sea monster but it's probably the most fierce," Hurum said, adding the fossil has jagged teeth the size of cucumbers.

"The front flipper of our pliosaur alone is three meters long. We've laid it out downstairs in the basement," he said.

Earlier estimates had been that the Norwegian pliosaur, popularly dubbed "The Monster," was about 40 ft. long, roughly as long as Australia's kronosaurus.

The Arctic find "demonstrates that these gigantic animals inhabited the northern seas of our planet during the age of dinosaurs," said Patrick Druckenmiller of the University of Alaska Museum who was on the expedition that found the fossil.

The Norwegian museum said that it was planning to return in mid-2008 to excavate a skull and skeleton of another gigantic pliosaur recently found near "The Monster."

Yeah, this bad boy could put a damper on your day at the beach or fishing trip. OR, your life period! Can YOU imagine, a mouth full of teeth the size of cucumbers shaped like daggers? And YOU thought sharks were bad.

To sum up, this just gets us one step closer to Godzilla, dragons and stuff we don't even know existed/exists.

Show me more Mother Earth,

Bobby SharpeDragon, Book of Shang Amazon.com: Dragon: Book of Shang: Books: Bobby Sharpe dragon, book of shang, Fiction Books items on eBay.com

Let's Kill Some Gray Wolves, We're Stupid

Gray Wolves No Longer Endangered

BILLINGS, Mont. (Feb. 21) - Gray wolves in the Northern Rockies will be removed from the endangered species list, following a 13-year restoration effort that helped the animal's population soar, federal officials said Thursday.

An estimated 1,500 wolves now roam Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. That represents a dramatic turnaround for a predator that was largely exterminated in the U.S. outside of Alaska in the early 20th century.

"Gray wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains are thriving and no longer require the protection of the Endangered Species Act," said Interior Deputy Secretary Lynn Scarlett. "The wolf's recovery in the Northern Rocky Mountains is a conservation success story."

The restoration effort, however, has been unpopular with ranchers and many others in the three states since it began in the mid-1990s, and today some state leaders want the population thinned significantly.

The states are planning to allow hunters to target the animals as soon as this fall. That angers environmental groups, which plan to sue over the delisting and say it's too soon to remove federal protection.

"The enduring hostility to wolves still exists," said Earthjustice attorney Doug Honnold, who is preparing the lawsuit. "We're going to have hundreds of wolves killed under state management. It's a sad day for our wolves."

Plans submitted by Idaho, Montana and Wyoming indicate the states will likely maintain between 900 and 1,250 wolves for the foreseeable future, federal officials said.

Wolves have increasingly preyed on livestock as they expanded into new territories. At the same time, ranchers and wildlife agents have made more wolf kills, which are allowed under the Endangered Species Act in response to livestock conflicts.

Since the late 1980s, 724 wolves have been killed legally, and roughly the same number are estimated to have been killed illegally by poachers. Despite that, the overall population has continued to grow as groups critical of such hunts say the government should be moving in the opposite direction, restoring wolves to areas where they are not now found.

The only other areas of the lower 48 states where gray wolves live are the western Great Lakes and the Southwest. A population of about 4,000 wolves in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin was dropped from the endangered list last year, while a reintroduced population of dozens of animals in Arizona and New Mexico has struggled to expand.

In a petition filed Wednesday with the Department of Interior, Defenders of Wildlife and the Natural Resource Defense Council argued new wolf populations should be established in Maine, New York, Oregon, Colorado, Utah, Washington and possibly New Hampshire, Texas and portions of the mid-Atlantic.

Federal officials said Thursday there were no immediate plans to reintroduce wolves into other states or regions.

However, an independent wolf biologist said he would be "shocked" if the animal again ends up on the endangered list.

"The last thing any of the states want is for wolves to be re-listed by the federal government," said Daniel Pletscher, director of the University of Montana's wildlife biology program. He added that tolerance of wolves has grown immensely since the species was nearly wiped out.

It sucks that the only way idiot humans can control something is to kill it. If these 2 legged morons would have had some intelligence, they could have re-introduced the gray wolf successfully without over population. Sure, they are attacking livestock, because they have nothing else to eat. Why, because man did not control their growth and migration. NOW, to correct that faux pas, "let's kill some gray wolves"!

In the grand scheme of things, they say, "what goes around comes around". Maybe one of these days, humans will be the grey wolf. Then, maybe we will feel their pain and suffering. It will be well deserved.

Wolves Rule,

Bobby Sharpe Dragon, Book of Shang Amazon.com: Dragon: Book of Shang: Books: Bobby Sharpe

Dragon, Book Of Shang Now Available

FYI, Dragon, Book Of Shang is now available at Dragon, Book of Shang and Amazon.com: Dragon: Book of Shang: Books: Bobby Sharpe

Get Your copy today! YOU will not be disappointed!

Dragons Rule,

Bobby Sharpe www.myspace.com/akuasharpe

Two New Meat Eaters Discovered

New meat-eating dinos identified

Two previously unknown types of meat-eating dinosaur have been identified from fossils unearthed in the Sahara desert in Niger.

The new carnivore fossils have been described by a researcher from the University of Bristol working with palaeontologists from the US.

One of the dinosaurs probably scavenged its prey like a hyena, the other probably hunted live animals.

Details appear in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica.

The fossilised remains of two 110-million-year-old carnivorous dinosaurs were found along the western edge of the Tenere Desert in Niger by Dr Paul Sereno, from the University of Chicago, eight years ago.

"They are the earliest records of both major carnivore groups that would go on to dominate Africa, South America, and India during the next 50 million years, in the Cretaceous Period," said co-author Steve Brusatte, from the University of Bristol.

Hidden face

One of the creatures was about 8m (25ft) in length and sported a short snout with a horny covering. It has been named Kryptops palaios or "old hidden face".

Kryptops may have scavenged food in a manner similar to a hyena.

Like later members of its dinosaur group - known as the abelisaurids - in South America and India, it had short, armoured jaws and small teeth, well designed for gobbling guts and gnawing carcasses.

The other discovery is of a similar-sized contemporary called Eocarcharia dinops or "fierce-eyed dawn shark".

It possessed blade-shaped teeth and a prominent bony eyebrow ridge. Unlike Kryptops, its teeth were more suited to attacking live prey and severing body parts.

The Carcharodontosaurids, the group to which Eocarcharia belongs, included predators as big, if not bigger, than Tyrannosaurus rex.

A swollen bony brow over Eocarcharia's eye gave it a menacing appearance and may have been used as a battering ram against rivals for mating rights, say the researchers.

These two meat eaters were contemporaries of another carnivorous dinosaur which is known from the same area: Suchomimus, a large fish-eating theropod.

"It is clear from their anatomy that they were eating different things: Suchomimus ate fish, Kryptops ate smaller animals and Eocarcharia was the top predator of its day," said Mr Brusatte.

"Just like in the African savannah today, lions, cheetahs and hyenas must eat different food to survive side by side. It is fascinating to see this in a 110-million-year-old ecosystem."

As I have stated numerous times before, "here we go again, brand new meat eating species that was heretofore not known". I am telling YOU people, there is and was stuff here on this planet that we have no clue about yet. All YOU folks that want to sit around and talk about what doesn't exist, YOU need to check yourself. Or, "opyn your mindz".

Where's Godzilla & Shang,

Bobby Sharpe Dragon, Book of Shang www.myspace.com/akuasharpe

Dolphin Taxi & Tiger Mouth To Mouth

Dolphins Aren't for Driving

There comes a point during every drunken evening when all you want is to get home. Paying $100 for a cab is bad, but trying to flag down a passing sea mammal is probably crossing the line.

Two Brits are now in court defending themselves against charges of grabbing onto a bottlenose dolphin and trying to "hitch a ride" after a night at the pub last year. Michael Jukes and Daniel Buck, both 26, have admitted that they disregarded signs near the shore, in their town of Folkestone, which warned against bothering the creature.

"He was happy to have people there. People travel thousands of miles to do that in Florida, so I took advantage while it was there," Jukes told London's Metro newspaper. "I grabbed his fin, but he didn't seem up for pulling us along. I said: 'Give him some space. Don't upset him.' The dolphin came to us. It's a powerful creature.'

"The two men were spotted by a marine biologist, and have been charged with "interfering with" the animal, which has since gone missing.

Student's mouth-to-muzzle saves tiger cub

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German medical student got some unexpected practical experience at the zoo when she gave the kiss of life to a baby tiger choking on a piece of meat, the zoo director said Friday.

The student was passing the enclosure with her toddler son on a visit several weeks ago when she noticed the 4-month-old tiger choking and offered her assistance to the helpless keeper, said Andreas Jacob, director of the zoo in the eastern German city of Halle.

"The tiger tried to eat a piece of meat that was too big and started choking and shaking and then fell over," the student, Janine Bauer, told MDR radio.

"We got the piece out but he wasn't breathing so I tried mouth-to-mouth and heart massage," she added. "After 3-5 minutes he came to, thank God."

The zoo, which held a ceremony Friday to thank Bauer, has decided to call the tiger Johann, after her one-year-old son.

These are just two more stories on how we humans and our animal bretheren coexist and interact. As I always say, "animals are the bomb, they are the best"!

Animals Rule,

Bobby Sharpe Dragon, Book of Shang www.myspace.com/akuasharpe

Touching Your Soul & Heart

If these pictures dont speak to your soul and heart, it just may be time for YOU to leave this place. Enough said! However, your comments are welcome.

Animals Rule,

Bobby Sharpe reggae8@aol.com "Dragon, Book Of Shang": Dragon, Book Of Shang Is Coming Soon!