The site that yielded the snake — dubbed Sanajeh indicus, or "ancient-gaped one from India" — was located near a village in Gujarat in western India. It was a rich nesting ground for sauropods known as titanosaurs, with evidence for hundreds of egg clutches, each containing about six to 12 round, spherical eggs. Two other instances of fossil snakes found with these clutches suggest the newly described serpent species made its living plundering nests for young dinosaurs.
"It would have been a smorgasbord," said researcher Jason Head, a paleontologist at the University of Toronto at Mississauga. "Hundreds or thousands of defenseless baby sauropods could have supported an ecosystem of predators during the hatching season."
The dinosaur eggs likely were laid along the sandy banks of a small, quiet tributary and covered afterward by the mother with a thin layer of sediment. These dinosaurs did not seem to look after their young — no evidence for adults has been found at the site.
The fact the bones and delicate structures, such as eggshells and the snake's skull, are arranged in anatomical order (as they would appear in real life) points to quick entombment of a serpent caught in the act, as opposed to them all getting washed together after they died.
"Burial was rapid and deep," said researcher Shanan Peters, a geologist at the University of Wisconsin. "Probably a pulse of slushy sand and mud released during a storm."
thinkahol * on 09 Nov 10A stuffed teddy bear that appears as if it?s inhaling and exhaling was designed by researchers to comfort fussy babies in the crib, but it seems to work even better for their mothers, a new study reveals. According to the mothers? estimates of crying time, babies who spent five months snuggling with ?Breathing Bear? did not cry any less than infants who shared their crib with a regular stuffed bear, say Evelyn B. Thoman, Ph.D., and Claire Novosad, Ph.D., of the University of Connecticut. But mothers of the Breathing Bear babies reported less depression and stress and described their infants as less fussy and difficult.
