I have no problem with so many science writers – including me back in the day when I was in daily harness – who cover dinosaur news to a level of micro-incrementalism nearly in a league with, among other reporters, Tiger Woods’s personal foibles and major league baseball spring training. One reason is that editors at general news outlets, who might usually have a high threshold for science news as urgent enough to cover, seem to feel they get dinosaurs even if they are sci-phobic former English majors. So reporters know dinos are easy pickings with the assignment desk. Plus, in this case, the news is in Science, so the professionals regard it as important, too.
A small, distant, and in some ways ancestral relative of Tyrannosaurus rex has been identified among bones recovered in Australia. The evidence is a fossilized hip bone that has features supposedly found only in this extended clan. It would thus be, they say, the first tyrannosaur known from the Southern Hemisphere, hence is of some interest to paleontologists interested in the radiation of this one (but popular) class of theropods.
None of the home institutions of the researchers on the team even commissioned a fancy colorful dramatic and plumed artist’s impression of what this predator might have looked like while prancing across the ancient Outback. Yet the major wire services, BBC, major newspapers around the world, and the usual specialty outlets all wrote it up. Can’t blame them – for one, people will read it. For two, it’s not a tough piece to write.
One more point before listing some of the fish in this trawl: The standard line in reporting this, and in material from Science and the researchers, is that this is the first Southern Hemisphere tyrannosaur. Yet if you scroll down a bit to the post today from my colleagues Pere Estupinya on Spanish language press, he cites a report from Chile that just a short time ago, paleontologists there say they found a tyrannosaur there, too. Check it out, somebody.
Stories:
Pride of Place – Australian Media first:
Sydney Morning Herald – Nicky Phillips: Revealed: Australia’s very own little tyrannosaur ; The story emphasizes that, at the time 100+ million years ago, Australia was even farther south than it is now and was joined to Antarctica.- The Age – Birdie Smith: Tyrannosaur dinosaurs called Australia home ; Gets one spoilsport expert noting that a key, diagnostic protrusion on the fossil is merely inferred – as it is broken off.
- ABC Radio Australia – Dani Cooper: Scientists unearth Australian Tyrannosaurus ;
And samples from all over:
- AP – Randolph E. Schmid: Fossil of T. rex ancestor found in Australia, first such find in Southern Hemisphere ;
- Reuters – Michael Perry: T.Rex stalked Australia, albeit a mini-me version, And that is a headline, albeit a fact-distorting version. First, the correct abbrev of King Tyrant Lizard is T.rex, and of course a mini-me version, to be tedious, is not a T.Rex, rex, or anything else – it’s just a T for Tyrannosaur.
- AFP – Tyranosaurs roamed southern hemisphere: study ;
- LA Times – Amina Khan: Tyrannosaur bone found in Australia ;
- USA Today – Dan Vergano: Tyrannosaurs spread worldwide early in Age of Dinosaurs ;
- Guardian (UK) David Adam: T-rex’s slightly less terrifying ancestor unearthed in Australia ;
- Bloomberg – Simeon Bennett: T. Rex Ancestors Live in Australia, Hip Bone Discovery Proves ; Now, if one grabbed the copy editor who wrote that hed by the lapel and asked, hey buddy, does this really prove it?, he or she’d probably shrug No, but who cares?
- Telegraph (UK) Richard Alleyne: T-Rex’s long lost Australian cousin found for first time ; Alleyne’s story is fine, but the hed …. quite aside from the small Linnaean nomenclature flub, it’s one that seems to make sense but really does not. How can something have been lost if nobody previously knew of it? Who lost it? Did it lose itself? What…???
- Money Times (India) Priyanka : Evidence proves the existence of T. Rex in Australia.
- … could go on, time’s up, have a good weekend everybody.
Grist for the Mill: University of Cambridge Press Release ;
– Charlie Petit
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