On October 23, a team of paleontologists and pathologists announced that they had discovered a massive, possibly lethal brain tumor in the fossilized skull of a Gorgosaurus, a 25-foot-long relative of Tyrannosaurus rex that lived 72 million years ago.
The tumor, possibly an unusual type of bone-forming cancer called an extraskeletal osteosarcoma, filled nearly the entire area formerly occupied by the cerebellum and brainstem and probably impaired the cerebrum, the part of the brain that controls thought and memory. “As the tumor grew, the dinosaur—a female perhaps three years old— would have forgotten where she left her last kill, and then she would have forgotten to go to the bathroom,” says paleontologist Peter Larson of the Black Hills Institute in Hill City, South Dakota.
Dinosaurs had bathrooms?
Posted by marybeth at December 23, 2003 01:14 AM Other StuffThose dinosaurs were more technically savvy than you thought... ;-)
Posted by Paul Jané at December 23, 2003 10:43 PMOh, to have been the dinosaur that had the store that sold plungers!
Posted by marybeth at December 24, 2003 12:33 PM