Paleontology

Chicago researchers have identified the fossil of a 110- million-year-old dinosaur with a mouth like the business end of a Hoover vacuum cleaner to feed its voracious appetite for grass, ferns and other low-lying greenery.

It was trapped under the Siberian permafrost for more than 12,000 years and discovered by fossil hunters who at first mistook it for a mammoth tusk. But on Sunday, the 4 1/2-foot-long fossilized walrus penis -- believed to be the world's largest specimen -- was the most talked-about piece of natural history up for bids at I.M. Chait in Beverly Hills. The prehistoric phallus sat on a metal display stand, curving to a narrow point. An attendant stood watch over it.

Weighing in at 150 pounds or more and with a wingspan of 23 feet, the all-time biggest bird couldn't just hop into the air and fly away, researchers say. Researchers at Texas Tech University used computer programs originally designed for aircraft to analyze the probable flight characteristics of Argentavis magnificens, a giant bird that lived in South America 6 million years ago.

Researchers reported Monday that they had unearthed two fossil penguins, one of which stood 5 feet tall, that lived in the warm climate of prehistoric Peru -- a discovery that promises to change the way scientists think about penguins and cold weather. Until now, scientists were comfortable with the notion that ancient penguins first appeared more than 60 million years ago in cold habitats and didn't move close to the equator until 8 million years ago.

The remains of a birdlike dinosaur as tall as the formidable Tyrannosaurus rex have been found in China, a discovery that indicates a more complicated evolutionary process for birds, scientists reported Thursday in the journal Nature.

Harley Garbani excused himself, ducked out of the room and returned with a savage set of 6-inch teeth and claws. "Take a look," he said, displaying the finer, if sharper, points of a Tyrannosaurus rex. "If he picks you up with these, you can kiss your butt goodbye." That fate seems unlikely these days even if Garbani's home is more appropriate to, say, Jurassic Park than the trailer park in Hemet where he lives.

Foghorn Leghorn would be proud. The cantankerous Loony Tunes rooster and his brethren appear to be the closest living descendants of the ferocious Tyrannosaurus rex that ruled the world of dinosaurs. That's the conclusion of a team of researchers who analyzed a remarkable 68-million-year-old sample of T. rex tissue. It began two years ago when paleontologist Mary H.

Human fossil remains from northern China, among the oldest found in Asia, show characteristics that throw into question the theory that modern people evolved directly from African ancestors, according to a study in Monday's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The 40,000-year-old Tianyuan Cave skeleton combines physical characteristics of modern humans and the earlier Neanderthal people, researchers said.

A new study of one of the earliest feathered dinosaurs suggests it may have had upper and lower sets of wings, much like a biplane. The dinosaur, known as Microraptor gui, was originally described in 2003 by Chinese researchers as having aerodynamic feathers on both its arms and legs, arranged in flight one behind the other, like a dragonfly.

Scientists in Spain have found the fossilized remains of one of the largest animals ever to walk the Earth, a gargantuan plant-eating dinosaur up to 125 feet long and weighing as much as seven elephants, according to a report in the journal Science.