Someone in Hollywood should snap up the movie rights to the backstory of Falcarius utahensis, the 125 million-year-old dinosaur with 4-in. claws and spoon-shaped molars unveiled last week. Scientists say it offers the first glimpse into how dinos made the transition from small, agile meat eaters to elephant-size vegetarians. Falcarius, as it turns out, was dug up by a black-market fossil collector named Lawrence Walker, who found it on federal land in Utah while digging at night under a tarp. Convinced he was onto something big, the poacher tipped off a paleontologist he knew, James Kirkland, and led him to the...
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