Meet Shuvuuia deserti, a nocturnal dinosaur that lived 70 million years ago
The Hindu
It was a pheasant-sized, two-legged Cretaceous Period dinosaur weighing about as much as a small house cat.
Under the cover of darkness in desert habitats about 70 million years ago, in what is today Mongolia and northern China, a gangly looking dinosaur employed excellent night vision and superb hearing to thrive as a menacing pint-sized nocturnal predator. Scientists said on Thursday an examination of a ring of bones surrounding the pupil and a bony tube inside the skull that houses the hearing organ showed that this dinosaur, called Shuvuuia deserti, boasted visual and auditory capabilities akin to a barn owl, indicating it could it hunt in total darkness. , published in the journal Science, showed that predatory dinosaurs overall generally possessed better-than-average hearing — helpful for hunters — but had vision optimized for daytime. In contrast, Shuvuuia loved the nightlife.More Related News

Climate scientists and advocates long held an optimistic belief that once impacts became undeniable, people and governments would act. This overestimated our collective response capacity while underestimating our psychological tendency to normalise, says Rachit Dubey, assistant professor at the department of communication, University of California.






