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Pipeline Worker Finds Massive Hydrosaur Skeleton

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A massive dinosaur fossil has been unearthed in Alberta.

But it wasn’t an expedition of paleontologists who found it.

It was a pipeline worker.

A man was using a backhoe to move some earth for a pipeline that was being installed near Spirit River, Alberta. The worker hit something he thought was a rock.

He laid the piece of “rock” to one side, and kept digging, according to CBC News.

But it wasn’t rock at all. It was a huge fossilized skeleton—a tail, to be precise.

It was about two metres long.

The worker stopped digging and called in some experts.

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Animals News

Toronto Zoo Elephants Prepare For Trip To California

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For two years, the Toronto Zoo and Toronto City Council have been trying to agree on the best way to move three senior elephants to California.

The elephants are quite old and must be treated very carefully.

Now, if all goes well, Toka, Thika and Iringa will begin their trip next month.

At first, they were to make the move by plane, but that idea was turned down in favour of driving.

Now they will go in containers on a 50-hour journey with several stops along the way for feeding and cleaning of the crates.

Veterinarians and handlers will go with them on the trip to make sure the animals are safe and not stressed.

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Animals Science

New Species Of Dinosaur Found In Alberta

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A dome-headed dinosaur skull found in southern Alberta is helping scientists rethink some of their ideas about dinosaurs.

The skull was found in 2008 by a team of scientists led by Dr. David Evans of the Royal Ontario Museum.

The skull is about 85 million years old.

The top of the skull is made of a dome-shaped mass of solid bone about 10 centimetres thick.

This means the dinosaur belonged to a group of dinosaurs called pachycephalosaurs (“thick-headed lizards”).

The scientists compared the skull to all of the known pachycephalosaur specimens in the world – about 600 of them.

They learned that there are 16 different species within that group, and the skull discovered in Alberta belongs to a species that has never been seen before.

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Animals News

Non-Venomous Python Found In Winnipeg Dumpster

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A Winnipeg resident was surprised on Tuesday to discover a five-foot Ball python in a dumpster behind an apartment building.

The snake is not poisonous.

The resident called police; one of the officers used a small recycling box to corral and hold the snake.

The police then called the city’s animal services department.

They came right away and rescued the animal.

Ball pythons are a bit smaller than most pythons. Ball pythons are about one metre long.

Police said that finding a snake in this way is extremely rare—it almost never happens.

The person who discovered the snake had been putting out their garbage and heard a noise; they saw a snake moving around.

The snake will be held until a good home can be found for it.

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Animals Science

Unlocking The Mysteries Of The Monarch Butterfly’s Incredible Journey

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Every year, Monarch butterflies fly more than 4,000 kilometres from Canada to Mexico.

Until recently, no-one was sure how the Monarch butterfly knew the exact path to take that would ensure it would end up at its intended destination after such a long flight.

Now Canadian scientists believe they have discovered the secret to the butterfly’s internal sense of direction.

Scientists wanted to know if the Monarchs used a type of “internal compass” or an “internal map.” Some animals and birds have both.

To find out, researchers tested the butterflies by starting them different locations than they normally would. Ryan Norris, an associate professor of biology at the University of Guelph, started them on their journey from Guelph, Ontario and Calgary, Alberta.

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Animals Science

Camel Fossils Found In Canada’s Arctic

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Scientists have discovered fossilized bone fragments belonging to a prehistoric camel that lived in Canada’s High Arctic about 3.5 million years ago.

The fossils were found on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, in a site near the Strathcona Fiord.

Scientists have also found the fossilized remains of mammals such as bears, beavers and deerlets (small deerlike animals) in this area.

The site is a polar desert now, but during the Pliocene era – the time when the when the camel was alive – it would have been a forest. The average temperature in the Arctic was 14 to 22 degrees warmer then, so it was warm enough for trees to grow, but still cold, snowy and dark for much of the year.

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Animals News Science

Giant Pandas Arrive In Toronto

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Two giant pandas arrived in Toronto on March 25 to begin a 10-year visit to Canada.

The pandas will spend five years at the Toronto Zoo, and then move to the Calgary Zoo for another five years. They are on loan to Canada from the Chinese government.

The pandas travelled by plane from their native China, along with several kilograms of bamboo shoots, boxes of apples and their favourite toys. The trip took 15 hours.

The pandas were greeted at the airport by a large crowd, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Zhang Junsai, the Chinese ambassador to Canada. A high school band played “O Canada” as the pandas’ crates were unloaded.

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Animals Kids News

Pterosaur Named After Girl Who Discovered It

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Like many children, Daisy Morris loves to collect fossils.

Unlike other children, however, Daisy’s hobby has led to a pterosaur being named after her.

A pterosaur is a type of flying reptile closely related to dinosaurs.

The species Daisy discovered is now known as Vectidraco daisymorrisae, or “Dragon from the Isle of Wight.”

Daisy, who lives in England, was five years old in 2008 when she and her mother were taking a walk along the beach. She noticed some black bones—about 40 mm long– sticking out of the mud and she dug them out.

The family took the bones to a fossil expert at Southampton University in England.

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Animals Science

Underwater Dolphin Rescue Caught On Video

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Keller Laros is a professional scuba instructor who lives in Hawaii.

The shores of Kailua-Kona, on The Big Island of Hawaii, host some of the world’s most diverse and interesting aquatic life.

Laros estimates he has made more than 10,000 dives in his career.

On Jan. 11, he led a group of videographers and divers on a “Manta Ray Night Dive.”

However, the tour would be unlike any other trip he had ever been on before.

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Animals News

Lonesome George May Not Have Been The Last Of His Kind

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When the giant tortoise known as Lonesome George died last summer, people thought he was the last of his kind.

Lonesome George lived on Pinta Island, one of a group of islands called the Galapagos, in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of South America.

He belonged to a species called Chelonoidis abingdoni, which was native to that island and not found anywhere else in the world.

When he died, scientists believed the species became extinct.

Now a group of researchers has found giant tortoises, who may be related to Lonesome George, living on another Galapagos island.

These scientists studied the DNA of a group of giant tortoises living on Isabella Island, about 60 kilometres away from Lonesome George’s home.

They found 17 tortoises that had some DNA from the same Pinta Island species as Lonesome George.

These tortoises also had DNA from a different species, which means they had ancestors from both species.

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