The Flying Saucer At Sunset

Lenticular clouds (Altocumulus lenticularis) are stationary lens-shaped clouds with a smooth layered appearance that form in the troposphere, usually above mountain ranges. One was spotted in Singapore recently...

Eyes Of 30,000 Honeycombs

With 30,000 individual facets, dragonflies have the most number of facets among insects. Each facet, or ommatidia, creates its own image, and the dragonfly brain has eight pairs of descending visual neurons to compile those thousands of images into one picture...

A Kaleidoscope Of Colours, Shapes And Patterns

Spectacular and innovative in design, the Flower Dome replicates the cool-dry climate of Mediterranean regions like South Africa, California and parts of Spain and Italy. Home to a collection of plants from deserts all over the world, it showcases the adaptations of plants to arid environments...

Lightning Strikes, Not Once, But Many Times

Unlike light, lightning does not travel in a straight line. Instead, it has many branches. These other branches flashed at the same time as the main strike. The branches are actually the step leaders that were connected to the leader that made it to its target...

Are You My Dinner Tonight?

A T-Rex has 24-26 teeth on its upper jaw and 24 more on its lower jaw. Juveniles have small, sharp blade-shaped teeth to cut flesh, whereas adults have huge, blunt, rounded teeth for crushing bones. Is the T-Rex a bone-crushing scavenger?

Dinosaur Cranial Ontogeny - Ah Boy Is Different From Papa

"Titans of the Past - Dinosaurs & Ice Age Mammals"
Science Centre Singapore
Jurong East
West, Singapore
October/November 2013

The skulls of all dinosaurs changed shape as the animals grew older. These differences could be so that other individuals of the same species could recognize juveniles from adults.


Neoteny
The retention of juvenile characteristics with age
Neotenous animals are often considered "cute" because of their round heads, big eyes and shortened snouts. These young animals retain neoteny so that their parents will continue to care for them.

Modifications in skull shape might be due to changed diets as these neotenous animals grow up.


The Three Most Important Scientific Theories In Paleontology
  1. Theory of Extinction
  2. Species that have once lived are now extinct
  3. Theory of Darwinian Evolution
  4. New species arise through a process of descent with modification via natural selection
  5. Theory of Radiometric Dating
    Elemental isotopes have predictable rates of decay and these rates can be used to determine the age of the rocks here the dinosaurs are found

Why does Ah Boy look so different from Papa?

Dinosaurs were known to be very social creatures, nesting in colonies and travelling in herds. Among such a big group of animals, it is important for adults to recognize their young to take care of them, and also when the young reach sexual maturity.




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