T-Rex fails to impress Las Vegas bidders

A 66-million-old Tyrannosaurus Rex named Samson failed to sell at a Las Vegas auction after the top bid of 3.6 million dollars fell way below the minimum price.

Samson, a female T-Rex found on a South Dakota ranch in 1992, also trailed the record 8.36 million dollars that Sue, another T-Rex, sold for at a 1997 auction.

Sue, the most complete T-Rex ever found, has since become a blockbuster attraction in Chicago?s Field Museum, which bought her.

But Samson, which is a little less well preserved, was one of 17 dinosaur and fossil items which failed to sell Saturday, in a sign of the depressed economy.

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China's new dinosaur fossil sheds light on bird origin

Chinese scientists have discovered a 160-million-year-old feathery four-winged dinosaur fossil that sheds new light on the origin of birds.

The dinosaur, excavated from Jianchang County, in the northeastern province of Liaoning, belongs to the Troodontidae, a family of theropods most closely related to birds, Hu Dongyu, head of a research group from the Shenyang Normal University, said Friday.

The fossil is the oldest troodontid reported so far, Hu told reporters in Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning.

It is about 20-30 million years older than the earlier oldest troodontid, found also in Liaoning, the scientist said.

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