WHATS NEW WITH THE STUDY OF DINOSAURS?
Plenty – over the last two decades, a “dinosaur renaissance” has been brought about by a new breed of paleontologists looking at field evidence from many disciplines. They are looking at new aspects of dinosaurs, such as their physiology, their lifestyles, their childhood years, and their ecological relationships with each other. Also being debated are previous assumptions of dinosaurs being cold-blooded (ectothermic) and sluggish as modern reptiles are, and the various extinction theories, which invoke some catastrophic cosmic events. Some paleontologists have suggested that dinosaurs were the forerunners of modern birds. The sheer volume of new dinosaur discoveries has increased, as many finds are being reported in China, and in the U.S. (Dinosaur National Monument in Jensen, Utah), Texas (theropod footprints) and Arizona. Extremely rare discoveries have included dinosaur juveniles, eggs, and very early ancestral forms. The new image of dinosaurs is best seen in the recent Hollywood
