{"id":126368,"date":"2021-08-16T22:46:36","date_gmt":"2021-08-17T05:46:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/08\/scientists-discover-dinosaur-fossil-that-seems-suspiciously-like-a-dragon"},"modified":"2021-08-16T22:46:36","modified_gmt":"2021-08-17T05:46:36","slug":"scientists-discover-dinosaur-fossil-that-seems-suspiciously-like-a-dragon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/08\/scientists-discover-dinosaur-fossil-that-seems-suspiciously-like-a-dragon","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Discover Dinosaur Fossil That Seems Suspiciously Like a Dragon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/scientists-discover-dinosaur-fossil-that-seems-suspiciously-like-a-dragon.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a lot that scientists still don\u2019t understand about pterosaurs, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnet.com\/news\/fearsome-dragon-skull-reveals-beast-that-terrorized-australias-skies\/\" class=\"\">CNET<\/a> <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnet.com\/news\/fearsome-dragon-skull-reveals-beast-that-terrorized-australias-skies\/\" class=\"\">reports<\/a>, especially because so few fossils have been found. But uncovering this new fossil helps explain how the admittedly terrifying creature lived, hunted, and flourished millions of years ago.<\/p>\n<p>The fossil \u2014 a massive jawbone \u2014 suggests that the <em>Thapunngaka shawi <\/em>was a ferocious hunter. The 3.2 foot-long jaw likely held as many as 40 huge, sharp teeth. The creature had a wingspan of 22 feet and a neck longer than a giraffe\u2019s that it used to balance its humongous head, according to <em>CNET<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis thing would have been quite savage,\u201d study coauthor and University of Queensland School of Biological Sciences PhD student Tim Richards told the site. \u201cIt would have cast a great shadow over some quivering little dinosaur that wouldn\u2019t have heard it until it was too late.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There\u2019s a lot that scientists still don\u2019t understand about pterosaurs, CNET reports, especially because so few fossils have been found. But uncovering this new fossil helps explain how the admittedly terrifying creature lived, hunted, and flourished millions of years ago. The fossil \u2014 a massive jawbone \u2014 suggests that the Thapunngaka shawi was a ferocious [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":513,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-126368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-futurism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126368\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}