"Sleeping" dinosaur found

<body leftmargin="0" bgcolor="#000060" text="#FFFFFF" link="#FFFF00" vlink="#FF9900"> <b> <p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="4">Fossil of sleeping dinosaur said to be found</font></p> </b> <p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="1">Posted Oct. 14, 2004<br> Courtesy of Nature</font> <b> <font size="2" face="Arial"><br> <br> Fossil hunters in China have unearthed a new dinosaur apparently caught in<br> the act of grabbing forty winks. The creature was found curled up with its head tucked under one forelimb -- the way birds sleep today.</font> </b> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <b> <font size="2" face="Arial">Mei long, which means 'soundly sleeping dragon', was found by Xing Xu and Mark Norell near Beipiao City in Liaoning province, China. This region is fast becoming a treasure trove for dinosaur finds, yielding fossils that tell us about their behaviour as well as their bodies.</font> </b> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <b> <font size="2" face="Arial">This is the earliest known example of a creature found in a bird-like repose, and shows that this characteristic sleeping posture probably first appeared in the dinosaur ancestors of modern birds. At just 53 centimetres long, M. long also lends support to the theory that the small size of the dinosaur forebears of birds was crucial to their subsequent development of flight.</font> </b> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <b> <font size="2" face="Arial">The research is published in the Oct. 14 issue of the research journal <i>Nature</i>.</font></p> </b> <p class="MsoNormal"> <b> <font size="2" face="Arial"><a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/world-science">http://groups.yahoo.com/group/world-science</a></font> </b> </p> </body>