Sarmientosaurus Was a 10-Ton Dinosaur With a Plum-Sized Brain

Chang, Kenneth. "Sarmientosaurus Was a 10-Ton Dinosaur With a Plum-Sized Brain." The New York Times. The New York Times, 26 Apr. 2016. Web. 27 Apr. 2016.

The article that I read, Sarmientosaurus Was a 10-Ton Dinosaur With a Plum-Sized Brain, discusses the recent find of a fossil in Argentina that has been declared a new species of dinosaurs. For the most part, the article speaks about the dinosaur’s physical makeup and compares it to other types of dinosaurs. Some of these features include very large eye sockets, suggesting better than average sight and an inner ear structure that is supposedly tuned to low frequency sounds. Right now, paleontologists are just trying to analyze and figure out what the Sarmientosaurus was like and what it looked like. There aren’t too many tests occurring other than hypotheses of what the function of certain structures are. I could really feel that the paleontologists were really excited when they talked about their new find. Dr. Matthew Lamanna, a curator at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History said, “By combining data from these different discoveries, we’re gradually building up a picture as to what the biology of these animals was like. In other words, what makes the largest land animals of all time tick?”

This article is very important to the scientific world because of its understanding or goal to understand the world before humans were apart of it. With technology becoming more advanced, and the opportunities to find and discover arising, the knowledge and ingenuity of science is changing and expanding in many different directions very quickly. This find will allow scientists to observe and compare more species of dinosaurs that arose in early Earth and apply the information to evolution. By knowing and understanding this, we could be closer to grasping more concepts of evolution, as there is still quite a lot we don’t understand. This could also be used to study the brains and bone structure of animals and humans.

In my opinion, I feel that this article was written very well. The author gave a great summary of the  Sarmientosaurus’ physical build up and specifics of the brain that were key to introducing the new find of this dinosaur. There was no time in which I was confused content-wise, nor was it repetitive or wordy. For this reason, I believe that the author was very clear and concise in his research and writing. Also, because there were some quotes that were included from experts on the subject the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, it allowed me to be comfortable and trust the information that was presented in the article. Overall, the author seemed to know a lot about what he was talking about, definitely a sign of a good writer.