Special on New Dinosaur Discovery in Utah to Air on the Science Channel June 6 at 8PM

Special on New Dinosaur Discovery in Utah to Air on the Science Channel June 6 at 8PM

UTAH'S DINOSAUR GRAVEYARD Features Falcarius utahensis Discovery, Announced May 5 in the Journal Nature

SILVER SPRING, Md., June 1 /PRNewswire/ -- On June 6 at 8PM, The Science Channel will premiere an exclusive, original hour-long special featuring Jim Kirkland's discovery of the new dinosaur Falcarius utahensis. The dinosaur is an important missing link between carnivorous raptors and the plant-eating therizinosaurs. Until this discovery, therizinosaurs were thought to have originated in Asia, but this find opens up the possibility that they were indigenous to North America.

UTAH'S DINOSAUR GRAVEYARD presents a ground-level view of the unearthing of this important new dinosaur discovery, following Kirkland's team as they each work on their own piece of the puzzle to try to understand this feather- covered raptor-like vegetarian enigma. The dig site in Utah contains hundreds of animals, from babies to adults, which means that Falcarius has the potential to become one of the most studied and most understood of any dinosaur species. This new dinosaur represents the most primitive member yet discovered of the bizarre group of feathered dinosaurs called therizinosaurs, and helps scientists better understand the different evolutionary paths of the raptors and therizinosaurs.

Kirkland's study was funded by a $100,000 grant from the Discovery Channel to the Utah Geological Survey, which provided a matching $100,000.

UTAH'S DINOSAUR GRAVEYARD is produced for The Science Channel by Normandy Films. Gary Wortman is the producer and Brian Leonard is the executive producer. For The Science Channel, Allan Butler is executive producer and Steve Burns is executive in charge of production.

The Science Channel is part of Discovery Networks, U.S., a unit of Discovery Communications, Inc., which also operates and manages the Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, the Travel Channel, Discovery Health Channel, Discovery HD Theater, Discovery Kids Channel, Discovery Times Channel, Military Channel, Discovery Home Channel, Discovery en Espanol and FitTV. The unit also distributes BBC AMERICA.

Source: The Science Channel

CONTACT: Beth Foster of The Science Channel, +1-301-807-3624, or Beth_Foster-cw@discovery.com

Web site: http://www.discovery.com/

NOTE TO EDITORS: Images are available at www.press.discovery.com.

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